Class 
Book 



! 



r 



i 



t 

THE STORY OF THE 

MORMONS 



From the Date of their Origin to 
the Year igoi 



BY 

WILLIAM ALEXANDER LINN 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1902 

All rights reserved 



COPYEIGHT, 1902, 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped January, 1902. 



Nortoooti ^ress 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



4 Q,fc\\ 



mil 

tm P 96 029194 



PREFACE 



No chapter of American history has remained so long unwrit- 
ten as that which tells the story of the Mormons. There are 
many books on the subject, — histories written under the auspices 
of the Mormon church, which are hopelessly biassed as well as 
incomplete; more trustworthy works which cover only certain 
periods ; and books in the nature of " exposures " by former mem- 
bers of the church, which the Mormons attack as untruthful, and 
which rest, in the minds of the general reader, under a suspicion 
of personal bias. Mormonism, therefore, to-day suggests to most 
persons only one doctrine — polygamy — and only one leader — 
Brigham Young, who made his name familiar to the present gen- 
erations. Joseph Smith, Jr., is known, where known at all, only 
in the most general way as the founder of the sect, while the real 
originator of the whole scheme for a new church and of its doc- 
trines and f crnment, Sidney Rigdon, is known to few persons 
even by name. 

The object of the present work is to present a consecutive his- 
tory of the Mormons, from the day of their origin to the present 
writing, and as a secular, not as a religious, narrative. The search 
has been for facts, not for moral deductions, except as these 
present themselves in the course of the story. Since the usual 
weapon which the heads of the Mormon church use to meet 
anything unfavorable regarding their organization or leaders is a 
general denial, this narrative has been made to rest largely on 
Mormon sources of information. It has been possible to follow 
this plan a long way because many of the original Mormons left- 
sketches that have been preserved. Thus we have Mother Smith's 
picture of her family and of the early days of the church ; the 
Prophet's own account of the revelation to him of the golden 
plates, of his followers' early experiences, and of his own doings, 
almost day by day, to the date of his death, written with an ego- 



vi 



PREFACE 



tist's appreciation of his own part in the play; other autobiog- 
raphies, like Parley P. Pratt's and Lorenzo Snow's ; and, finally, 
the periodicals which the church issued in Ohio, in Missouri, in 
Illinois, and in England, and the official reports of the discourses 
preached in Utah, — all showing up, as in a mirror, the character 
of the persons who gave this Church of Latter-Day Saints its 
being and its growth. 

In regard to no period of Mormon history is there such a lack 
of accurate information as concerning that which covers their 
moves to Ohio, thence to Missouri, thence to Illinois, and thence 
to Utah. Their own excuse for all these moves is covered by the 
one word " persecution " (meaning persecution on account of their 
religious belief), and so little has the non-Mormon world known 
about the subject that this explanation has scarcely been chal- 
lenged. Much space is given to these early migrations, as in this 
way alone can a knowledge be acquired of the real character of 
the constituency built up by Smith in Ohio, and led by him from 
place to place until his death, and then to Utah by Brigham 
Young. 

Any study of the aims and objects of the Mormon leaders 
must rest on the Mormon Bible (" Book of Mormon ") and on the 
" Doctrine and Covenants," the latter consisting principally of the 
" revelations " which directed the organization of the church and 
its secular movements. In these alone are spread out the original 
purpose of the migration to Missouri and the instructions of Smith 
to his followers regarding their assumed rights to the territory 
they were to occupy ; and without a knowledge of. these " revela- 
tions " no fair judgment can be formed of the justness of the 
objections of the people of Missouri and Illinois to their new 
neighbors. If the fraudulent character of the alleged revelation 
to Smith of golden plates can be established, the foundation of 
the whole church scheme crumbles. If Rigdon's connection with 
Smith in the preparation of the Bible by the use of the " Spauld- 
ing manuscript" can be proved, the fraud itself is established. 
Considerable of the evidence on this point herein brought together 
is presented at least in new shape, and an adequate sketch of 
Sidney Rigdon is given for the first time. The probable service 
of Joachim's " Everlasting Gospel," as suggesting the story of the 
revelation of the plates, has been hitherto overlooked. 



PREFACE 



vii 



A few words with regard to some of the sources of information quoted : — 
"Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and his Progenitors for Many 
Generations" ("Mother Smith's History, 1 ' as this book has been generally 
called) was first published in 1853 by the Mormon press in Liverpool, with a 
preface by Orson Pratt recommending it ; and the Millennial Star (Vol. XV, 
p. 682) said of it : " Being written by Lucy Smith, the mother of the Prophet, 
and mostly under his inspiration, will be ample guarantee for the authenticity 
of the narrative. . . . Altogether the work is one of the most interesting that 
has appeared in this latter dispensation." Brigham Young, however, saw how 
many of its statements told against the church, and in a letter to the Millennial 
Star (Vol. XVII, p. 298), dated January 31, 1858, he declared that it contained 
" many mistakes," and said that " should it ever be deemed best to publish these 
sketches, it will not be done until after they are carefully corrected." The preface 
to the edition of 1880, published by the Reorganized Church at Piano, Illinois, 
says that Young ordered the suppression of the first edition, and that " under 
this order large numbers were destroyed, few being preserved, some of which fell 
into the hands of those now with the Reorganized Church. For this destruction 
we see no adequate reason." James J. Strang, in a note to his pamphlet, "Pro- 
phetic Controversy," says that Mrs. Corey (to whom the pamphlet is addressed) 
"wrote the history of the Smiths called 'Mother Smith's History.'" Mrs. Smith 
was herself quite incapable of putting her recollections into literary shape. 

The autobiography of Joseph Smith, Jr., under the title " History of Joseph 
Smith," began as a supplement to Volume XIV of the Millennial Star, and ran 
through successive volumes to Volume XXIV. The matter in the supplement 
and in the earlier numbers was revised and largely written by Rigdon. The 
preparation of the work began after he and Smith settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. 
In his last years Smith rid himself almost entirely of Rigdon's counsel, and the 
part of the autobiography then written takes the form of a diary which unmasks 
Smith's character as no one else could do. Most of the correspondence and 
jfficial documents relating to the troubles in Missouri and Illinois are incorpo- 
rated in this work. 

Of the greatest value to the historian are the volumes of the Mormon publi- 
cations issued at Kirtland, Ohio ; Independence, Missouri ; Nauvoo, Illinois ; and 
Liverpool, England. The first of these, Evening and Morning Star (a monthly, 
twenty-four numbers), started at Independence and transferred to Kirtland, covers 
the period from June, 1832, to September, 1834; its successor, the Latter Day 
Saints' Messenger and Advocate, was issued at Kirtland from 1834 to 1837. This 
was followed by the Elders' 1 Journal, which was transferred from Kirtland to Far 
West, Missouri, and was discontinued when the Saints were compelled to leave 
that state. Times and Seasons was published at Nauvoo from 1839 to I %45- 
Files of these publications are very scarce, the volumes of the Times and Seasons 
having been suppressed, so far as possible, by Brigham Young's order. The 
publication of the Millennial Star was begun in Liverpool in May, 1840, and is 
still continued. The early volumes contain the official epistles of the heads of the 
church to their followers, Smith's autobiography, correspondence describing the 
early migrations and the experiences in Utah, and much other valuable material, 



viii 



PREFACE 



the authenticity of which cannot be disputed by the Mormons. In the Journal 
of Discourses (issued primarily for circulation in Europe) are found official reports 
of the principal discourses (or sermons) delivered in Salt Lake City during 
Young's regime. Without this official sponsor for the correctness of these reports, 
many of them would doubtless be disputed by the Mormons of to-day. 

The earliest non-Mormon source of original information quoted is "Mor- 
monism Unveiled," by E. D. Howe (Painesville, Ohio, 1834). Mr. Howe, after a 
newspaper experience in New York State, founded the Cleveland (Ohio) Herald 
in 18 19, and later the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph. Living near the scene of the 
Mormon activity in Ohio when they moved to that state, and desiring to ascer- 
tain the character of the men who were proclaiming a new Bible and a new 
church, he sent agents to secure such information among the Smiths' old 
acquaintances in New York and Pennsylvania, and made inquiries on kindred 
subjects, like the " Spaulding manuscript." His book was the first serious blow 
that Smith and his associates encountered, and their wrath against it and its 
author was fierce. 

Pomeroy Tucker, the author of " Origin and Progress of the Mormons " 
(New York, 1867), was personally acquainted with the Smiths and with Harris 
and Cowdery before and after the appearance of the Mormon Bible. He read a 
good deal of the proof of the original edition of that book as it was going through 
the press, and was present during many of the negotiations with Grandin about 
its publication. His testimony in regard to early matters connected with the 
church is important. 

Two non-Mormons who had an early view of the church in Utah and who 
put their observations in book form were B. G. Ferris ("Utah and the Mor- 
mons," New York, 1854 and 1856) and Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison of the United 
States Topographical Engineers ("The Mormons," Philadelphia, 1856). Both 
of these works contain interesting pictures of life in Utah in those early days. 

There are three comprehensive histories of Utah, — H. H. Bancroft's "His- 
tory of Utah " (1889), Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City " (1886), and Orson 
F. Whitney's "History of Utah," in four volumes, three of which, dated respec- 
tively March, 1892, April, 1893, and January, 1898, have been issued. The Re- 
organized Church has also published a " History of the Church of Jesus Christ 
of Latter Day Saints " in three volumes. While Bancroft's work professes to be 
written from a secular standpoint, it is really a church production, the preparation 
of the text having been confided to Mormon hands. "We furnished Mr. Ban- 
croft with his material," said a prominent Mormon church officer to me. Its 
plan is to give the Mormon view in the text, and to refer the reader for the other 
side to a mass of undigested notes, and its principal value to the student consists 
in its references to other authorities. Its general tone may be seen in its decla- 
ration that those who have joined the church to expose its secrets are "the most 
contemptible of all " ; that those who have joined it honestly and, discovering 
what company they have got into, have given the information to the world, 
would far better have gone their way and said nothing about it ; and, as to 
polygamy, that " those who waxed the hottest against " the practice " are not as 
a rule the purest of our people" (p. 361) ; and that the Edmunds Law of 1882 
"capped the climax of absurdity" (p. 683). 



I 



PREFACE 



ix 



Tullidge wrote his history after he had taken part in the "New Movement." 
In it he brought together a great deal of information, including the text of impor- 
tant papers, which is necessary to an understanding of the growth and struggles 
of the church. The work was censored by a committee appointed by the Mormon 
authorities. 

Bishop Whitney's history presents the pro-Mormon view of the church 
throughout. It is therefore wholly untrustworthy as a guide to opinion on the 
subjects treated, but, like Tullidge's, it supplies a good deal of material which is 
useful to the student who is prepared to estimate its statements at their true 
value. 

The acquisition by the New York Public Library of the Berrian collection 
of books, early newspapers, and pamphlets on Mormonism, with the additions 
constantly made to this collection, places within the reach of the student all the 
material that is necessary for the formation of the fairest judgment on the subject. 

W. A. L. 

Hackensack, N.J., 1901. 



CONTENTS 



BOOK I 



THE MORMON ORIGIN 



CHAPTER I 

Facility of Human Belief: The Real Miracle of Mormon Success — Effrontery 
of the Leaders' Professions — Attractiveness of Religious Beliefs to Man — 
Wherein the World does not make Progress — The Anglo-Saxon Appetite for 
Religious Novelties 

CHAPTER II 

The Smith Family: Solomon Mack and his Autobiography — Religious Char- 
acteristics of the Prophet's Mother — The Family Life in Vermont — Early- 
Occupations in New York State — Pictures of the Prophet as a Youth — 
Recollections of the Smiths by their New York Neighbors .... 8 



CHAPTER III 

How Joseph Smith became a Money-digger : His Use of a Divining Rod — 
His First Introduction to Crystal-gazing — Peeping after Hidden Treasure — 
How Joseph obtained his own " Peek-stone " — Methods of Midnight Money- 
digging 15 

CHAPTER IV 

First Announcement of the Golden Bible : Variations in the Early Descrip- 
tions — Joseph's Acquaintance with the Hales — His Elopement and Marriage 
— What he told a Neighbor about the Origin of his Bible Discovery — Early 
Anecdotes about the Book 23 



CHAPTER V 

The Different Accounts of the Revelation of the Bible: The Versions 
about the Spanish Guardian — Important Statement by the Prophet's Father 
— The Later Account in the Prophet's Autobiography — The Angel Visitor 
and the Acquisition of the Plates — Mother Smith's Version . . 28 



CHAPTER VI 

Translation and Publication of the Bible : Martin Harris's Connection with 
the Work — Smith's Removal to Pennsylvania — How the Translation was 

xi 



xii 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

carried on — Harris's Visit to Professor Anthon — The Professor's Account of 
his Visit — The Lost Pages — The Prophet's Predicament and his Method of 
Escape — Oliver Cowdery as an Assistant Translator — Introduction of the 
Whitmers — The Printing and Proof-reading of the New Bible — Recollec- 
tions of Survivors 35 

CHAPTER VII 

The Spaulding Manuscript : Solomon Spaulding's Career — History of " The 
Manuscript Found " — Statements by Members of the Author's Family — 
Testimony of Spaulding's Ohio Neighbors about the Resemblance of his Story 
to the Book of Mormon — The Manuscript found in the Sandwich Islands . 50 



CHAPTER VIII 

Sidney Rigdon : His Biography — Connection with the Campbells — Efficient 
Church Work in Ohio — His Jealousy of his' Church Leaders — Disciples' 
Beliefs and Mormon Doctrines — Intimations about a New Bible — Rigdon's 
First Connection with Smith — The Rigdon-Smith Translation of the Scriptures 
— Rigdon's Conversion to Mormonism 59 



CHAPTER IX 

" The Everlasting Gospel " : Probable Origin of the Idea of a Bible on Plates 
— Cyril's Gift from an Angel and Joachim's Use of it — Where Rigdon could 
have obtained the Idea — Prominence of the "Everlasting Gospel" in Mormon 
Writings 74 

CHAPTER X 

The Witnesses to the Plates: Text of the Two " Testimonies " — The Proph- 
et's Explanation of the First — Early Reputation and Subsequent History of 
the Signers — The Truth about the Kinderhook Plates and Rafinesque's 
Glyphs 78 

CHAPTER XI 

The Mormon Bible : Some of its Errors and Absurdities — Facsimile of the First 
Edition Title-page — The Historical Narrative of the Book — Its Lack of 
Literary Style — Appropriated Chapters of the Scriptures — Specimen 
Anachronisms 89 



CHAPTER XII 

Organization of the Church : Smith's Ordination by John the Baptist — The 
First Baptisms — Early Branches of the Church — The Revelation about 
Church Officers — Cowdery's Ambition and how it was repressed — Smith's 
Title as Seer, Translator, and Prophet — His Arrest and Release — Arrival of 
Parley P. Pratt and Rigdon in Palmyra — The Command to remove to Ohio . 99 



ifl 



CONTENTS 



xiii 



CHAPTER XIII 

PAGE 

The Mormons' Beliefs and Doctrines — Church Government : Long Years 
of Apostasy — Origin of the Name " Mormon " — Original Titles of the Church 
— Belief in a Speedy Millennium — The Future Possession of the Earth — 
Smith's Revelations and how they were obtained — The First Published Edi- 
tions — Counterfeit Revealers — What is taught of God — Brigham Young's 
Adam Sermon — Baptism for the Dead — The Church Officers . . . 107 



BOOK II 

IN OHIO 
CHAPTER I 

The First Converts at Kirtland : Original Missionaries sent out to the 
Lamanites — Organization of a Church in Ohio — Effect of Rigdon's Conver- 
sion — General Interest in the New Bible and Prophet — How Men of Educa- 
tion came to believe in Mormonism — Result of the Upturning of Religious 
Belief 122 

CHAPTER II 

Wild Vagaries of the Converts : Convulsions and Commissions — Common 
Religious Excitements of those Days — Description of the " Jerks " — Smith's 
Repressing Influence 128 



CHAPTER III 

Growth of the Church : The Appointment of Elders — Beginning of the Prose- 
lyting System — Smith's Power entrenched — His Temporal Provision — 
Repression of Rigdon — The Tarring and Feathering of Smith and Rigdon — 
Treatment of the Mormons and of Other New Denominations compared — 
Rigdon's Punishment 131 



CHAPTER IV 

Gifts of Tongues and Miracles : How Persons " spoke in Tongues " . — Seeing 
the Lord Face to Face — Early Use of Miracles — The Story of the "Book of 
Abraham" — The Prophet as a Translator of Greek and Egyptian . . . 138 



CHAPTER V 

Smith's Ohio Business Enterprises : Young's Picture of the Prophet's Experi- 
ence as a Retail Merchant — The Land Speculation — Laying out of the City 
— Building of the Temple — Consecration of Property — How the Leaders 
looked out for themselves — Amusing Explanation of Section 1 1 1 of the 
"Doctrine and Covenants" — The Story of the Kirtland Bank — The Church 
View of its Responsibility for the Currency — The Business Crash and Smith's 
Flight to Missouri . 142 



xiv 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

Last Days at Kirtland : Pictures of the Prophet — Accusations against Church 
Leaders in Missouri — Serious Charge against the Prophet — W. W. Phelps's 
Rebellion — Smith's Description of Leading Lights of the Church — Charges 
concerning Smith's Morality — The Church accused of practising Polygamy — 
A Lively Fight at a Church Service — Smith's and Rigdon's Defence of their 
Conduct — The Later History of Kirtland . . . . '. . . 153 



BOOK III 

IN MISSOURI 
CHAPTER I 

The Directions to the Saints about their Zion: Western Missouri in the 
Early Days — Pioneer Farming and Home-making — The Trip of the Four 
Mormon Missionaries — Direction about the gathering of the Elect — How 



they were to possess the Land of Promise — Their Appropriation of the Good 
Things purchased of their Enemies 161 

CHAPTER II 

Smith's First Visits to Missouri : Founding the City of Zion and the Temple 
— Marvellous Stories that were told — Dissatisfaction of Some of the 
Prophet's Companions . . . . 166 



CHAPTER III 

The Expulsion from Jackson County : Rapid Influx of Mormons — Result of 
the Publication of the Revelations — First Friction with their Non-Mormon 
Neighbors — Manifesto of the Mormons' Opponents — Their Big Mass Meet- 
ing — Demands on the Mormons — Destruction of the Star Printing-office — 
The Mormons' Agreement to leave — Smith's Advice to his Flock — Repudia- 
tion of the Mormon Agreement and Renewal of Hostilities — The Battle at 
Big Blue — Evacuation of the County — March of the Army of Zion — An 



Inglorious Finale 169 

CHAPTER IV 

Fruitless Negotiations with the Jackson County People: A Fair Offer 
rejected — The Mormon Counter Propositions — Governor Dunklin on the 
Situation 182 

CHAPTER V 

In Clay, Caldwell, and Daviess Counties: Welcome of the Mormons by 
New Neighbors — Effect of their Claims about possessing the Land — Ordered 
out of Clay County — Founding of Far West — A Welcome to Smith and 
Rigdon 185 



CONTENTS 



XV 



CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

Radical Dissensions in the Church: Trial of Phelps and Whitmer — Convic- 
tion of Oliver Cowdery on Serious Charges — Expulsion of Leading Members 

— Origin of the Danites — Suggested by the Prophet at Kirtland — The 
Danite Constitution and Oath — Origin of the Tithing System . . .188 

CHAPTER VII 

Beginning of Active Hostilities: Result of Smith's Domineering Course — 
Jealousy caused by the Scattering of the Saints — Founding of Adam-ondi- 
Ahman — Rigdon's Famous Salt Sermon — Open Defiance of the Non-Mormons 

— The Mormons in Politics — An Election Day Row — Arrests and Threats . 195 



CHAPTER VIII 

A State of Civil War : Calling out of the Militia — Proposed Expulsion of the 
Mormons from Carroll County — The Siege of De Witt — The Prophet's Defi- 
ance — Work of his "Fur Company" — Gentile Retaliation — The Battle of 
Crooked River — The Massacre at Hawn's Mills — Governor Boggs's "Order 
of Extermination " . . . < 200 



CHAPTER IX 

The Final Expulsion from the State : General Lucas's Terms to the Mormons 
— Surrender of Far West and Arrest of Mormon Leaders — General Clark's 
Address to the Mormons — His Report to the Governor — General Wilson's 
Picture of Adam-ondi-Ahman — Fate of the Mormon Prisoners — Testimony 
at their Trial — Smith's Escape — Migration to Illinois 208 

BOOK IV 



IN ILLINOIS 
CHAPTER I 

The Reception of the Mormons : Incidents in the Early History of the State 
— Defiant Lawlessness — Politicians the First to welcome the New-comers — 
Landowners among their First Friends 219 



CHAPTER II 

The Settlement of Nauvoo: Smith's Leadership illustrated — The Land Pur- 
chases — A Reconciliation of Conflicting Revelations — Smith's Financiering 
— Shameful Misrepresentation to Immigrants 223 



CHAPTER III 

The Building up of the City: Unhealth fulness of its Site — Rapid Growth of 
the Place — Early Pictures of it — Foreign Proselyting — Why England was a 
Good Field — Method of Work there — The Employment of Miracles — How 
the Converts were sent over 226 



xvi 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER IV 

PAGE 

The Nauvoo City Government : Dr. Galland's Suggestions — An Important 
Revelation — Church Buildings ordered — Subserviency of the Legislature — 
Dr. John C. Bennett's Efficient Aid — Authority granted to the City Gov- 
ernment — The Nauvoo Legion — Bennett's Welcome — The Temple and 
how it was constructed 234 



CHAPTER V 

The Mormons in Politics : Smith's Decree against Van Buren — How the 
Prophet swung the Mormon Vote back to the Democrats — The Attempted 
Assassination of Governor Boggs — Smith's Arrest and what resulted from it 
— Defeat of a Whig Candidate by a Revelation 243 



CHAPTER VI 

Smith a Candidate for President of the United States: His Letter to 
Clay and Calhoun — Their Replies and Smith's Abusive Wrath — The Prophet's 
Views on National Politics — Reform Measures that he proposed — His 
Nomination by the Church Paper — Experiences of Missionaries sent out to 
work up his Campaign 250 



CHAPTER VII 

Social Conditions in Nauvoo: Character of its Population — Treatment of 
Immigrant Converts — Some Disreputable Gentile Neighbors — The Com- 
plaints of Mormon Stealings — Significant Admissions — Mormon Protection 
against Outsiders — The Whittlers 256 



CHAPTER VIII 

Smith's Picture of himself as Autocrat: Glances at his Autobiography — 
Difficulties connected with the Building Enterprises — A Plain Warning to 
Discontented Workmen — Trouble with Rigdon — Pressed by his Creditors 
— Transaction with Remick — Currency Law passed by his City Council — 
How Smith regarded himself as a Prophet — His Latest Prophecies . . 262 



CHAPTER IX 

Smith's falling out with Bennett and Higbee: Bennett's Expulsion and 
the Explanations concerning it — His Attacks on his Late Companions — 
Charges against Nauvoo Morality — The Case of Nancy Rigdon — The Higbee 
Incident 268 



CHAPTER X 

The Institution of Polygamy: An Examination of its Origin — Its Conflict 
with the Teachings of the Mormon Bible and Revelations — Early Loosening 
of the Marriage View under Smith — Proof of the Practice of Polygamy in 
Nauvoo — Testimony of Eliza R. Snow — How her Brother Lorenzo shook 



CONTENTS 



xvii 



off his Bachelorhood — John B. Lee as a Polygamist — Ebenezer Robinson's 
Statement — Objects of "The Holy Order" — The Writing of the Revelation 
about Polygamy — Its First Public Announcement — Sidney Rigdon's Inno- 
cence in the Matter 272 

CHAPTER XI 

Public Announcement of the Doctrine of Polygamy : Text of the Revela- 
tion — Orson Pratt's Presentation of it — The Doctrine of Sealing — Necessity 
of Sealing as a means of Salvation — Attempt to show that Christ was a 
Polygamist 282 

CHAPTER XII 

The Suppression of the Expositor : Dr. Foster and the Laws — Rebellion 
against Smith's Teachings — Leading Features of the Expositor — Trial of 
the Paper and its Editors before the City Council — Destruction of the Press 
and Type — Smith's Proclamation 290 

CHAPTER XIII 

Uprising of the Non-Mormons : Resolutions adopted at Warsaw — Organizing 
and Arming of the People — Action of Governor Ford — Smith's Arrest — 
Departure of the Prisoners for Carthage 297 

CHAPTER XIV 

The Murder of the Prophet : Legal Proceedings after his Arrival in Carthage 

— The Governor and the Militia — The Carthage Jail and its Guards — Action 
of the Warsaw Regiment — The Attack on the Jail and the Killing of the 
Prophet and his Brother — Funeral Services in Nauvoo — Final Resting-place 
of the Bodies — Result of Indictments of the Alleged Murderers — Review of 

the Prophet's Character 301 

CHAPTER XV 

After Smith's Death : The People in a Panic — The Mormon Leaders for Peace 

— The Future Government of the Church — Brigham Young's Victory — 
Rigdon's Trial before the High Council — Verdict against him — His Church 
in Pennsylvania — His Ambition to be the Head of a Distinct Church — A 
Visit from Heavenly Messengers — His Last Days 313 

CHAPTER XVI 

Rivalries over the Succession: The Claim of the Prophet's Eldest Son — 
Trouble caused by the Prophet's Widow — The Reorganized Church — 
Strang's Church in Wisconsin — Lyman Wight's Colony in Texas . . . 322 

CHAPTER XVII 

Brigham Young : His Early Years — His Initiation into the Mormon Church — 
Fidelity to the Prophet — Embarrassments of his Position as Head of the 
Church — His View about Revelations — Plan for Home Mission Work — 
His Election as President 327 



xviii 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XVIII 

PAGE 

Renewed Trouble for the Mormons : More Charges of Stealing — Significant 
Admission by Young — Business Plight of Nauvoo — More Politics — Defiant 
Attitude of Mormon Leaders — An Editor's View of Legal Rights — Stories 
about the Danites — Brother William on Brigham Young — The "Burnings" 
— Sheriff Backenstos's Proclamations — Lieutenant Worrell's Murder — Mor- 
mon Retaliation — Appointment of the Douglas-Hardin Commission . . 331 



CHAPTER XIX 

The Expulsion of the Mormons: General Hardin's Proclamation — County- 
Meetings of Non-Mormons — Their Ultimatum — The Commission's Negotia- 
tions — Non-Mormon Convention at Carthage — The Agreement for the 
Mormon Evacuation 338 



CHAPTER XX 

The Evacuation of Nauvoo: Major Warren as a Peace Preserver — The Mor- 
mons' Disposition of their Property — Departure of the Leaders hastened by 
Indictments — Arrival of New Citizens — Continued Hostility of the Non- 
Mormons — "The Last Mormon War" — Panic in Nauvoo — Plan for a 
March on the Mormon City — Fruitless Negotiations for a Compromise — 
The Advance against the City — The Battle and its Results — Terms of Peace 
— The Final Evacuation 343 



CHAPTER XXI 

Nauvoo after the Exodus: Arrival of Governor Ford — The Final Work on 
the Temple — The " Endowment " Ceremony and Oath — Futile Efforts to 
sell the Temple — Its Destruction by Fire and Wind — The Nauvoo of To-day 35 



BOOK V 

THE MIGRATION TO UTAH 



CHAPTER I 

Preparations for the Long March: Uncertainty of their Destination — Expla- 
nations to the People — Disposition of Real and Personal Property — Collec- 
tion of Draft Animals — Activity in Wagon and Tent Making — The Old 
Charge of Counterfeiting — Pecuniary Sacrifices of the Mormons in Illinois 



CHAPTER II 

From the Mississippi to the Missouri: The First Crossings of the River — 
Camp Arrangements — Sufferings from the Cold — The Story of the Westward 
March — Motley Make-up of the Procession — Expedients for obtaining 
Supplies — Terrible Sufferings of the Expelled Remnant — Privations at 
Mt. Pisgah 3 6 



CONTENTS 



xix 



CHAPTER III 

PACK 

The Mormon Battalion : Extravagant Claims regarding it disproved — General 
Kearney's Invitation — Source of the Initial Suggestion — How the Mormons 
profited by the Organization — The March to California — Colonel Thomas 
L. Kane's Visit to the Missouri — His Intimate Relations with the Mormon 



Church 371 

CHAPTER IV 

The Camps on the Missouri: Friendly Welcome of the Mormons by the 
Indians — The Site of Winter Quarters — Busy Scenes on the River Bank — 
Sickness and Death — The Building of a Temporary City .... 375 



CHAPTER V 

The Pioneer Trip across the Plains : Early Views of the Unexplored West 

— The First White Visitors to that Country — Organization of the Pioneer 
Mormon Band — Rules observed on the March — Successful Buffalo Hunting 

— An Indian Alarm — Dearth of Forage — Post-offices of the Plains — A 
Profitable Ferry 379 

CHAPTER VI 

From the Rockies to Salt Lake Valley : No Definite Stopping-place in View 

— Advice received on the Way — The Mormon Expedition to California by 
Way of Cape Horn — Brannan's Fall from Grace — Westward from Green 
River — Advance Explorers through a Canon — First View of Great Salt Lake 
Valley — Irrigation and Crop Planting begun . . . . . . . 385 

CHAPTER VII 

The Following Companies : Their Leaders and Make-up — Young's Return 
Trip — Last Days on the Missouri — Scheme for a Permanent Settlement in 
Iowa — Westward March of Large Companies 392 

BOOK VI 

IN UTAH 
CHAPTER I 

The Founding of Salt Lake City: Utah's First White Explorers — First 
Mormon Services in the Valley — Young's View of the Right to the Land — 
The First Buildings — Laying out the City — Early Crop Disappointment — 
Discomforts of the First Winter — Primitive Dwelling-places — The Visitation 
of Crickets — Glowing Accounts sent to England 395 



XX 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER II 

PAGE 

Progress of the Settlement : Schools and Manufactures — How the City, 
appeared in 1849 — Sufferings during the Winter of 1848 — Immigration 
checked by the Lack of Food — Aid supplied by the California Gold-seekers 
— Danger of a Mormon Exodus — Young's Rebuke to his Gold-seeking 
Followers — The Crop Failure of 1855 and the Famine of the Following 
Winter — The Tabernacle and Temple 402 

CHAPTER III 

The Foreign Immigration to Utah: The Commercial Joint Stock Company 
Scandal — Deceptive Statements made to Foreign Converts — John Taylor's 
Address to the Saints in Great Britain — Petition to Queen Victoria — Mormon 
Duplicity illustrated — Young's Advice to Emigrants — Glowing Pictures of 
Salt Lake Valley — The Perpetual Emigrating Fund — Details of the Emi- 
gration System 410 

CHAPTER IV 

The Hand-cart Tragedy: Young's Scheme for Economy — His Responsibility 
for the Hand-cart Experiment — Details of the Arrangement — Delays at 
Iowa City — Unheeded Warnings — Privations by the Way — Early Lack of 
Provisions — Suffering caused by Insufficient Clothing — Deaths of the Old 
and Infirm — Horrors of the Camps in the Mountains — Frozen Corpses 
found at Daybreak — Sufferings of a Party at Devil's Gate — Young's At- 



tempt to shift the Responsibility 418 

CHAPTER V 

iy' Early Political History: The Aim at Independence — First Local Govern- 
ment — Adoption of a Constitution for the State of Deseret — Babbitt's 
Application for Admission as a Delegate — Memorial opposing his Claim — 
His Rejection — The Territorial Government 428 



CHAPTER VI 

Brigham Young's Despotism: Causes that contributed to its Success — Help- 
lessness of the New-comers from Europe — Influence of Superstition — 
Young's Treatment of the Gladdenites — His Appropriation of Property — 
Laws passed by the Mormon Legislature — Bishops as Ward Magistrates — 
A Mormon Currency and Alphabet — What Emigrants to California learned 
about Mormon Justice 433 

CHAPTER VII 

The "Reformation": Young's Disclosures about the Character of his Flock — 
The Stealing from One Another — The Threat about " Laying Judgment to 
the Line " — Plain Declarations about the taking of Human Lives — First 
Steps of the "Reformation" — An Inquisition and Catechism — An Embar- 
rassing Confession — Warning to those who would leave the Valley . . 441 



CONTENTS xxi 
CHAPTER VIII 

PAGB 

Some Church-inspired Murders: The Story of the Parrishes — Carrying out of 
a Cold-blooded Plot— Judge Cradlebaugh's Effort to convict the Murderers 
— The Tragedy of the Aikin Party — The Story of Frederick Loba's Escape . 448 

CHAPTER IX 

Blood Atonement : Early Intimations concerning it — Jedediah M. Grant's Ex- 
planation of Human Sacrifices — Brigham Young's Definition of " Laying 
Judgment to the Line" — Two of the Sacrifices described — "The Affair at 
San Pete" ^/ \ . 454 



CHAPTER X 

Territorial Government: Brigham Young the First Governor — Colonel Kane's 
Part in his Appointment — Kane's False Statements to President Fillmore — 
Welcome to the Non-Mormon Officers — Their Early Information about Young's 
Influence — Pioneer Anniversary Speeches — Judge Brocchus's Offence to the 
Mormons — Young's Threatening and Abusive Reply — The Judge's Alarm 
about his Personal Safety — Return of the Non-Mormon Federal Officers to 
Washington — Young's Defence 45^ 

CHAPTER XI 

Mormon Treatment of Federal Officers : A Territorial Election Law — 
Why Colonel Steptoe declined the Governorship — Young's Assertion of his 
Authority — His Reappointment — Two Bad Judicial Appointments — Judge 
Stiles's Trouble about the Marshals — Burning of his Books and Papers — 
How Judge Drummond's Attempt at Independence was foiled — The Mormon 
View of Land Titles — Hostile Attitude toward the Government Surveyors — 
Reports of the Indian Agents 467 

CHAPTER XII 

The Mormon " War " : What the Federal Authorities had learned about Mor- 
monism — Declaration of the Republican National Convention of 1856 — 
Striking Speech by Stephen A. Douglas — Alfred Cumming appointed Gov- 
ernor with a New Set of Judges — Statement in the President's Message — 
Employment of a Military Force — The Kimball Mail Contract — Organiza- 
tion of the Troops — General Harney's Letter of Instruction — Threats against 
the Advancing Foe — Mobilization of the Nauvoo Legion — Captain Van 
Vliet's Mission to Salt Lake City — Young's Defiance of the Government — 
His Proclamation to the Citizens of Utah — " General " Wells's Order to his 
Officers — Capture and Burning of a Government Train — Colonel Alexander's 
Futile March — Colonel Johnston's Advance from Fort Laramie — Flarrowing 
Experience of Lieutenant Colonel Cooke's Command ..... 476 



xxii 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Mormon Purpose: Correspondence between Colonel Alexander and Brig- 
ham Young — Illustration of Young's Vituperative Powers — John Taylor's 
Threat — Incendiary Teachings in Salt Lake City — A Warning to Saints who 
would desert — The Army's Winter Camp — Proclamation by Governor Cum- 
ming — Judge Eckles's Court — Futile Preparations at Washington 

CHAPTER XIV 

Colonel Kane's Mission: His Wily Proposition to President Buchanan — His 
Credentials from the President — Arrival in California under an Assumed 
Name — Visit to Camp Scott — General Johnston ignored — Reasons why 
both the Government and the Mormons desired Peace — Kane's Success with 
Governor Cumming — The Governor's Departure for Salt Lake City — De- 
ceptions practiced on him in Echo Canon — His Reception in the City — 
Playing into Mormon Hands — The Governor's Introduction to the People — 
Exodus of Mormons begun 

CHAPTER XV 

The Peace Commission: President Buchanan's Volte-face — & Proclamation of 
Pardon — Instructions to Two Peace Commissioners — Chagrin of the Military 
— Governor Cumming's Misrepresentations — Conferences between the Com- 
missioners and Young — Brother Dunbar's Singing of " Zion " — Young's 
Method of Surrender — Judge Eckles on Plural Marriages — The Terms 
made with the Mormons — March of the Federal Troops to the Deserted City 
- — Return of the Mormons to their Homes 

CHAPTER XVI 

The Mountain Meadows Massacre : Circumstances Indicative of Mormon Offi- 
cial Responsibility — The Make-up of the Arkansas Party — Motives for Mor- 
mon Hostility to them — Parley P. Pratt's Shooting in Arkansas — Refusal of 
Food Supplies to the Party after leaving Salt Lake City — Their Plight before 
they were attacked — Successful Measures for Defence — Disarrangement of 
the Mormon Plans — John D. Lee's Treacherous Mission — Pitiless Slaughter 
of Men, Women, and Children — Testimony given at Lee's Trial — The Plun- 
dering of the Dead — Lee's Account of the Planning of the Massacre — Re- 
sponsibility of High Church Officers — Lee's Report to Brigham Young and 
Brigham's Instructions to him — The Disclosures by " Argus " — Lee's Execu- 
tion and Last Words 

CHAPTER XVII 

After the " War " : Judge Cradlebaugh's Attempts to enforce the Law — Investi- 
gation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre — Governor Cumming's Objections 
to the Use of Troops to assist the Court — A Washington Decision in Favor 
of Young's Authority — The Story of a Counterfeit Plate — Five Thousand 
Men under Arms to protect Young from Arrest — Sudden Departure of Cum- 
ming — Governor Dawson's Brief Term — His Shocking Treatment at Mormon 
Hands — Governor Harding's Administration — The Morrisite Tragedy . 



CONTENTS 



xxiii 



CHAPTER XVIII 

PAGE 

Attitude of the Mormons during the Southern Rebellion: Press and 
Pulpit Utterances — Arrival of Colonel Connor's Force — His March through 
Salt Lake City to Camp Douglas — Governor Harding's Plain Message to the 
Legislature — Mormon Retaliation — The Governor and Two Judges re- 
quested to leave the Territory — Their Spirited Replies — How Young escaped 
Arrest by Colonel Connor's Force — Another Yielding to Mormon Power at 
Washington 543 

CHAPTER XIX 

Eastern Visitors to Salt Lake City: Schuyler Colfax's Interviews with 
Young — Samuel Bowles's Praise of the Mormons and his Speedy Correction 
of his Views — Repudiation of Colfax's Plan to drop Polygamy — Two more 
Utah Murders — Colfax's Second Visit 552 

CHAPTER XX 

Gentile Irruption and Mormon Schism: Young's Jealousy of Gentile Mer- 
chants — Organization of the Zion Cooperative Mercantile Institution — 
Inception of the "New Movement" — Its Leaders and Objects — The Peep 
0' Day and the Utah Magazine — Articles that aroused Young's Hostility — 
Visit of the Prophet's Sons to Salt Lake City — Trial and Excommunication 
of Godbe and Harrison — Results of the "New Movement " . . . . 557 

CHAPTER XXI 

The Last Years of Brigham Young : New Governors — Shaffer's Rebuke to 
the Nauvoo Legion — Conflict with the New Judges — Brigham Young and 
Others indicted — Young's Temporary Imprisonment — A Supreme Court 
Decision in Favor of the Mormon Marshal and Attorney — Outside Influ- 
ences affecting Utah Affairs — Grant's Special Message to Congress — Failure 
of the Frelinghuysen Bill in the House — Signing of the Poland Bill — Ann 
Eliza Young's Suit for Divorce — The Later Governors 567 

CHAPTER XXII 

Brigham Young's Death : His Character — Explanation of his Dictatorial Power 
— Exaggerated Views of his Executive Ability — Overestimations by Contem- 
poraries — Young's Wealth and how he acquired it — His Revenue from 
Divorces — Unrestrained Control of the Church Property — His Will — Suit 
against his Executors — List of his Wives — His Houses in Salt Lake City . 574 

CHAPTER XXIII 

Social Aspects of Polygamy : Varied Provisions for Plural Wives — Home 
Accommodations of the Leaders — Horace Greeley's Observation about 
Woman's Place in Utah — Means of overcoming Female Jealousy — Young 



xxiv 



CONTENTS 



and Grant on the Unhappiness of Mormon Wives — Acceptance of Fanatical 
Teachings by Women — Kimball on a Fair Division of the Converts — Church 
Influence in Behalf of Plural Marriages — A Prussian Convert's Dilemma — 
President Cleveland on the Evils of Polygamy 582 



CHAPTER XXIV 

The Fight against Polygamy: First Measures introduced in Congress — The 
Act of 1862— The Cullom Bill of 1869 — Its Failure in the Senate — The 
United States Supreme Court Decision regarding Polygamy — Conviction of 
John Miles — Appeal of Women of Salt Lake City to Mrs. Hayes and the 
Women of the United States — President Hayes's Drastic Recommendation 
to Congress — Recommendations of Presidents Garfield and Arthur — Passage 
of the Edmunds Bill — Its Provisions — The Edmunds-Tucker Amendment — 
Appointment of the Utah Commission — Determined Opposition of the Mor- 
mon Church — Placing their Flags at Half Mast — Convictions under the 
New Law — Leaders in Hiding or in Exile — Mormon Honors for those who 
took their Punishment — Congress asked to disfranchise All Polygamists — 
The Mormon Church brought to Bay — Woodruffs Famous Proclamation — 
How it was explained to the Church — The Roberts Case and the Vetoed Act 
of 1 901 — How Statehood came 59° 



CHAPTER XXV 

The Mormonism of To-day : Future Place of the Church in American History 
— Main Points of the Mormon Political Policy — Unbroken Power of the 
Priesthood — Fidelity of the Younger Members — Extension of the Member- 
ship over Adjoining States — Mission Work at Home and Abroad — Decreased 
Foreign Membership — Effect of False Promises to Converts — The Settle- 
ments in Canada and Mexico — Polygamy still a Living Doctrine — Reasons 
for its Hold on the Church — Its Appeal to the Female Members — Impor- 
tance of a Federal Constitutional Amendment forbidding Polygamous Mar- 
riages — Scope of the Mormon Political Ambition 609 



Index 



619 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING PAGE 



Characters from the Book of Mormon 40 

Facsimiles of Three of the Kinderhook Plates 86 

Facsimile of Title-page of First Edition of Mormon Bible ... 90 

A Diagram of the Kingdom of God 116 

Facsimile from the Book of Abraham 140 

Facsimile of Altered Kirtland Bank-note 148 



XXV 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



BOOK I 

THE MORMON ORIGIN 

CHAPTER I 
FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF 

Summing up his observations of the Mormons as he found 
them in Utah while secretary of the territory, five years after 
their removal to the Great Salt Lake valley, B. G. Ferris wrote, 
" The real miracle [of their success] consists in so large a body of 
men and women, in a civilized land, and in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, being brought under, governed, and controlled by such gross 
religious imposture." This statement presents, in concise form, 
the general view of the surprising features of the success of the 
Mormon leaders, in forming, augmenting, and keeping together 
their flock ; but it is a mistaken view. To accept it would be to 
concede that, in a highly civilized nation like ours, and in so late 
a century, the acceptance of religious beliefs which, to. the non- 
believers, seem gross superstitions, is so unusual that it may be 
classed with the miraculous. Investigation easily disproves this. 

It is true that the effrontery which has characterized Mormon- 
ism from the start has been most daring. Its founder a lad of low 
birth, very limited education, and uncertain morals ; its beginnings 
so near burlesque that they drew down upon its originators the 
scoff of their neighbors, — the organization increased its mem- 
bership as it was driven from one state to another, building up 
at last in an untried wilderness a population that has steadily 
augmented its wealth and numbers ; doggedly defending its right 
to practise its peculiar beliefs and obey only the officers of the 
church, even when its course in this respect has brought it in con- 

B I 



2 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



flict with the government of the United States. Professing only 
a desire to be let alone, it promulgated in polygamy a doctrine 
that was in conflict with the moral sentiment of the Christian 
world, making its practice not only a privilege, but a part of the 
religious duty of its members. When, in recent years, Congress 
legislated against this practice, the church fought for its peculiar 
institution to the last, its leading members accepting exile and 
imprisonment ; and only the certainty of continued exclusion from 
the rights of citizenship, and the hopelessness of securing the long- 
desired prize of statehood for Utah, finally induced the church to 
bow to the inevitable, and to announce a form of release for its 
members from the duty of marrying more wives than one. Aside 
from this concession, the Mormon church is to-day as autocratic in 
its hold on its members, as aggressive in its proselyting, and as 
earnest in maintaining its individual religious and political power, 
as it has been in any previous time in its history. 

In its material aspects we must concede to the Mormon church 
organization a remarkable success ; to Joseph Smith, Jr., a leader- 
ship which would brook no rival; to Brigham Young the main- 
tenance of an autocratic authority which enabled him to hold 
together and enlarge his church far beyond the limits that would 
have been deemed possible when they set out across the plains 
with all their possessions in their wagons. But it is no more 
surprising that the Mormons succeeded in establishing their church 
in the United States than it would have been if they had been 
equally successful in South America ; no more surprising that 
this success should have been won in the nineteenth century than 
it would have been to record it in the twelfth. 

In studying questions of this kind, we are, in the first place, 
entirely too apt to ignore the fact that man, while comparatively a 
" superior being," is in simple fact one species of the animals that 
are found upon the earth ; and that, as a species, he has traits 
which distinguish him characteristically just as certain well-known 
-traits characterize those animals that we designate as "lower." 
If a traveller from the Sun should print his observations of the 
inhabitants of the different planets, he would have to say of those 
of the Earth something like this : " One of Man's leading traits is 
what is known as belief. He is a credulous creature, and is 
especially susceptible to appeals to his credulity in regard to 



FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF 



3 



matters affecting his existence after death." Whatever explana- 
tion we may accept of the origin of the conception by this animal 
of his soul-existence, and of the evolution of shadowy beliefs into 
religious systems, we must concede that Man is possessed of a 
tendency to worship something, — a recognition, at least, of a 
higher power with which it behooves him to be on friendly terms, 
— and so long as the absolute correctness of any one belief or 
doctrine cannot be actually proved to him, he is constantly ready 
to inquire into, and perhaps give credence to, new doctrines that 
are presented for his consideration. The acceptance by Man of 
novelties in the way of religions is a characteristic that has marked 
his species ever since its record has been preserved. According 
to Max Miiller, " every religion began simply as a matter of 
reason, and from this drifted into a superstition " ; that is, into 
what non-believers in the new doctrine characterize as a supersti- 
tion. Whenever one of these driftings has found a lodgement, 
there has been planted a new sect. There has never been a year 
in the Christian era when there have not been believers ready to 
accept any doctrine offered to them in the name of religion. As 
Shakespeare expresses it, in the words of Bassanio : — 

"In religion, 
What damned error but some sober brow 
Will bless it, and approve it with a text, 
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament ? " 

In glancing at the cause of this unchanged susceptibility to reli- 
gious credulity — unchanged while the world has been making such 
strides in the acquisition of exact information — we may find a 
summing up of the situation in Macaulay's blunt declaration that 
" natural theology is not a progressive science ; a Christian of the 
fifth century with a Bible is on a par with a Christian of the 
nineteenth century with a Bible." The " orthodox" believer in 
that Bible can only seek a better understanding of it by studying 
it himself and accepting the deductions of other students. Nothing, 
as the centuries have passed, has been added to his definite knowl- 
edge of his God or his own future existence. When, therefore, 
some one, like a Swedenborg or a Joseph Smith, appears with an 
announcement of an addition to the information on this subject, 
obtained by direct revelation from on high, he supplies one of the 
greatest desiderata that man is conscious of, and we ought, per- 



4 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



haps, to wonder that his followers are, not so numerous, but so 
few. Progress in medical science would no longer permit any- 
body like the College of the Physicians of London to recognize cu- 
rative value in the skull of a person who had met with a violent 
death, as it did in the seventeenth century ; but the physician of 
the seventeenth century with a pharmacopoeia was not " on a par 
with " a physician of the nineteenth century with a pharmacopoeia. 

Nor has man changed in his mental susceptibilities as the cen- 
turies have advanced. It is a failure to recognize this fact which 
leads observers like Ferris to find it so marvellous that a belief 
like Mormonism should succeed in the nineteenth century. 
Draper's studies of man's intellectual development led him to de- 
clare that " man has ever been the same in his modes of thought 
and motives of action," and to assert his purpose to "judge past oc- 
currences in the same way as those of our own time." 1 So Macau- 
lay refused to accept the doctrine that " the world is constantly 
becoming more and more enlightened," asserting that " the human 
mind, instead of marching, merely marks time." Nothing offers 
stronger confirmation of the correctness of these views than the 
history of religious beliefs, and the teachings connected therewith 
since the death of Christ. 

The chain of these beliefs and teachings — including in the list 
only those which offer the boldest challenge to a sane man's cre- 
dulity — is uninterrupted down to our own day. A few of them 
may be mentioned by way of illustration. In one century we find 
Spanish priests demanding the suppression of the opera on the 
ground that this form of entertainment caused a drought, and a 
Pope issuing a bull against men and women having sexual inter- 
course with fiends. In another, we find an English tailor, unsuc- 
cessfully, allotting endless torments to all who would not accept his 
declaration that God was only six feet in height, at the same time 
that George Fox, who was successful in establishing the Quaker 
sect, denounced, as unchristian adoration of Janus and Woden, any 
mention of a month as January or a day as Wednesday. Luther, 
the Protestant pioneer, believed that he had personal conferences 
with the devil ; Wesley, the founder of Methodism, declared that 
" the giving up of [belief] in witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the 
Bible." Education and mental training have had no influence in 

1 "Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. II, Chap. 3. 



FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF 



5 



shaping the declarations of the leaders of new religious sects. 1 The 
learned scientist, Swedenborg, told of seeing the- Virgin Mary 
dressed in blue satin, and of spirits wearing hats, just as confidently 
as the ignorant Joseph Smith, Jr., described his angel as " a tall, 
slim, well-built, handsome man, with a bright pillar upon his head." 

The readiness with which even believers so strictly taught as 
are the Jews can be led astray by the announcement of a new 
teacher divinely inspired, is illustrated in the stories of their many 
false Messiahs. One illustration of this — from the pen of Zang- 
will — may be given : — 

" From all the lands of the Exile, crowds of the devout came to do him hom- 
age and tender allegiance — Turkish Jews with red fez or saifron-yellow turban ; 
Jerusalem Jews in striped cotton gowns and soft felt hats ; Polish Jews with fox- 
skin caps and long caftans : sallow German Jews, gigantic Russian Jews, high- 
bred Spanish Jews : and with them often their wives and daughters — Jerusalem 
Jewesses with blue shirts and head-veils. Egyptian Jewesses with sweeping robes 
and black head-shawls, Jewesses from Ashdod and Gaza, with white visors fringed 
with gold coins ; Polish Jewesses with glossy wigs ; Syrian Jewesses with eye- 
lashes black as though lined with kohl : fat Jewesses from Tunis, with clinging 
breeches interwoven with gold and silver.' 1 

This homage to a man who turned Turk, and became a door- 
keeper of the Sultan, to save himself from torture and death ! 

Savagery and civilization meet on this plane of religious cre- 
dulity. The Indians of Canada believed not more implicitly in the 
demons who howled all over the Isles of Demons, than did the 
early French sailors and the priests whose protection the latter 
asked. The Jesuit priests of the seventeenth century accepted, 
and impressed upon their white followers in New France, belief in 
miracles which made a greater demand on credulity than did anv 
of the exactions of the Indian medicine man. That the head of a 
white man, which the Iroquois carried to their village, spoke to 
them and scolded them for their perfidy, "found believers among 
the most intelligent men of the colony," just as did the story of the 
conversion of a sick Huguenot immigrant, with whose gruel a 
Mother secretly mixed a little of the powdered bone of a Jesuit 
martyr. 2 And French Canada is to-day as " orthodox " in its be- 

1 "The splendid gifts which make a seer are usually found among those whom 
society calls 1 common or unclean.' These brutish beings are the chosen vessels in 
whom God has poured the elixirs which amaze humanity. Such beings have furnished 
the prophets, the St. Peters, the hermits of history." — Balzac, in "Cousin Pons.'' 

2 Parkman's " Old Regime in Canada." 



6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



lief in miracles as was the Canada of the seventeenth century. 
The church of St. Anne de Beaupre, below Quebec, attracts its 
thousands annually, and is piled with the crutches which the mi- 
raculously cured have cast aside. Masses were said in 1899 in 
the church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours at Montreal, at the 
expense of a pilots' association, to ward off wrecks in the treach- 
erous St. Lawrence; and in the near-by provinces there were 
religious processions to check the attacks of caterpillars in the 
orchards. 

Nor need we go to Catholic Quebec for modern illustrations of 
this kind of faith. " Bareheaded people stood out upon the cor- 
ner in East 113th Street yesterday afternoon," said a New York 
City newspaper of December 18, 1898, "because they were unable 
to get into the church of Our Lady Queen of Angels, where a relic 
of St. Anthony of Padua was exposed for veneration." Describ- 
ing a service in the church of St. Jean Baptiste in East 77th Street, 
New York, where a relic alleged to be a piece of a bone of the 
mother of the Virgin was exposed, a newspaper of that city, on 
July 24th, 1901, said: "There were five hundred persons, by ac- 
tual count, in and around the crypt chapel of St. Anne when after- 
noon service stopped the rush of the sick and crippled at 4.30 
o'clock yesterday. There were many more at the 8 o'clock even- 
ing Mass. What did these people seek at the shrine ? Only the 
favor of St. Anne and a kiss and touch of the casket that, by 
church authority, contains bone of her body." France has to-day 
its Grotto of Lourdes, Wales its St. Winefride's Well, Mexico its 
"wonder-working doll" that makes the sick well and the childless 
mothers, and Moscow its "wonder-working picture of the Mother 
of God," before which the Czar prostrates himself. 

Not in recent years has the appetite for some novelty on which 
to fasten belief been more manifest in the United States than it 
was at the close of the nineteenth century. Old beliefs found new 
teachers, and promulgators of new ideas found followers. Instruc- 
tors in Brahminism attracted considerable attention. A " Chapter 
of the College of Divine Sciences and Realization " instituted a 
revival of Druid sun-adoration on the shores of Lake Michigan. 
An organization has been formed of believers in the One-Over-At- 
Acre, a Persian who claimed to be the forerunner of the Millennium, 
and in whom, as Christ, it is said that more than three thousand per- 



FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF 



7 



sons in this country believe. We have among us also Jaorelites, 
who believe in the near date of the end of the world, and that they 
must make their ascent to heaven from a mountain in Scotland. 
The hold which the form of belief called Christian Science has ob- 
tained upon people of education and culture needs only be referred 
to. Along with this have come the " divine healers," gaining pa- 
tients in circles where it would be thought impossible for them to 
obtain even consideration, and one of them securing a clientage in 
a Western city which has enabled him to establish there a church 
of his own. 

In fact, instead of finding in enlightened countries like the 
United States and England a poor field for the dissemination of 
new beliefs, the whole school of revealers find there their best 
opportunities. Discussing this susceptibility, Aliene Gorren, in 
her "Anglo-Saxons and Others," reaches this conclusion: — 

" Nowhere are so many persons of sound intelligence in all practical affairs 
so easily led to follow after crazy seers and seeresses as in England and the 
United States. The truth is that the mind of man refuses to be shut out abso- 
lutely from the world of the higher abstractions, and that, if it may not make its 
way thither under proper guidance, it will set off even at the tail of the first 
ragged street procession that passes." 

The " real miracle " in Mormonism, then, — the wonderful fea- 
ture of its success, — is to be sought, not in the fact that it has 
been able to attract believers in a new prophet, and to find them 
at this date and in this country, but in its success in establishing 
and keeping together in a republic like ours a membership who 
acknowledge its supreme authority in politics as well as in religion, 
and who form a distinct organization which does not conceal its 
purpose to rule over the whole nation. Had Mormonism confined 
itself to its religious teachings, and been preached only to those 
who sought its instruction, instead of beating up the world for 
recruits and conveying them to its home, the Mormon church 
would probably to-day be attracting as little attention as do the 
Harmonists of Pennsylvania. 



CHAPTER II 
THE SMITH FAMILY 

Among the families who settled in Ontario County, New York, 
in 1816, was that of one Joseph Smith. It consisted of himself, 
his wife, and nine children. The fourth of these children, Joseph 
Smith, Jr., became the Mormon prophet. 

The Smiths are said to have been of Scotch ancestry. It was 
the mother, however, who exercised the larger influence on her 
son's life, and she has left very minute details of her own and her 
father's family. 1 Her father, Solomon Mack, was a native of 
Lyme, Connecticut. The daughter Lucy, who became Mrs. Joseph 
Smith, Sr., was born in Gilsum, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, 
on July 8, 1776. Mr. Mack was remembered as a feeble old man, 
who rode around the country on horseback, using a woman's sad- 
dle, and selling his own autobiography. The "tramp" of those 
early days often offered an autobiography, or what passed for one, 
and, as books were then rare, if he could say that it contained an 
account of actual adventures in the recent wars, he was certain to 
find purchasers. 

One of the few copies of this book in existence lies before me. 
It was printed at the author's expense about the year 18 10. It 
is wholly without interest as a narrative, telling of the poverty of 
his parents, how he was bound, when four years old, to a farmer 
who gave him no education and worked him like a slave ; gives 
some of his experiences in the campaigns against the French and 
Indians in northern New York and in the war of the Revolution, 
when he was in turn teamster, sutler, and privateer ; describes with 
minute detail many ordinary illnesses and accidents that befell 
him ; and closes with a recital of his religious awakening, which 
was deferred until his seventy-sixth year, while he was suffering 

1 " Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and his Progenitors for Many Genera- 
tions," Lucy Smith. 

8 



THE SMITH FAMILY 



9 



with rheumatism. At that time it seemed to him that he several 
times " saw a bright light in a dark night,'' and thought he heard 
a voice calling to him. Twenty-two of the forty-eight duodecimo 
pages that the book contains are devoted to hymns " composed," 
the title-page says, " on the death of several of his relatives," not 
all by himself. One of these may be quoted entire : — 

" My friends, I am on the ocean, 
So sweetly do I sail ; 
Jesus is my portion, 
He's given me a pleasant gale. 

" The bruises sore, 
In harbor soon I'll be, 
And see my redeemer there 
That died for you and me." 

Mrs. Smith's family seem to have had a natural tendency to 
belief in revelations. Her eldest brother, Jason, became a 
"Seeker"; the " Seekers " of that day believed that the devout 
of their times could, through prayer and faith, secure the " gifts " 
of the Gospel which were granted to the ancient apostles. 1 He 
was one of the early believers in faith-cure, and was, we are told, 
himself cured by that means in 1835. One of Lucy's sisters had 
a miraculous recovery from illness. After being an invalid for 
two years she was " borne away to the world of spirits," where she 
saw the Saviour and received a message from Him for her earthly 
friends. 

Lucy herself came very exactly under the description given by 
Ruth McEnery Stuart of one of her negro characters : " Duke's 
mother was of the slighter intelligences, and hence much given to 
convictions. Knowing few things, she ' believed in ' a great 
many." Lucy Smith had neither education nor natural intelli- 
gence that would interfere with such "beliefs" as came to her 
from family tradition, from her own literal interpretations of the 
Bible, or from the workings of her imagination. She tells us that 
after her marriage, when very ill, she made a covenant with God 
that she would serve him if her recovery was granted ; thereupon 
she heard a voice giving her assurance that her prayer would be 
answered, and she was better the next morning. Later, when 

1 A sect called " Seekers," who arose in 1645, taught, like the Mormons, that the 
Scriptures are defective, the true church lost, and miracles necessary to faith. 



10 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



anxious for the safety of her husband's soul, she prayed in a grove 
(most of the early Mormons' prayers were made in the woods), 
and saw a vision indicating his coming conversion ; later still, in 
Vermont, a daughter was restored to health by her parent's 
prayers. 

According to Mrs. Smith's account of their life in Vermont, 
they were married on January 24, 1796, at Tunbridge, but soon 
moved to Randolph, where Smith was engaged in " merchandise," 
keeping a store. Learning of the demand for crystallized ginseng 
in China, he invested money in that product and made a ship- 
ment, but it proved unprofitable, and, having in this way lost most 
of his money, they moved back to a farm at Tunbridge. Thence 
they moved to Royalton, and in a few months to Sharon, where, 
on December 23, 1805, Joseph Smith, Jr., their fourth child, was 
born. 1 Again they moved to Tunbridge, and then back to Royal- 
ton (all these places in Vermont). From there they went to 
Lebanon, New Hampshire, thence to Norwich, Vermont, still 
" farming " without success, until, after three years of crop failure, 
they decided to move to New York State, arriving there in the 
summer of 18 16. 

Less prejudiced testimony gives an even less favorable view 
than this of the elder Smith's business career in Vermont. Judge 
Daniel Woodward, of the county court of Windsor, Vermont, near 
whose father's farm the Smiths lived, says that the elder Smith 
while living there was a hunter for Captain Kidd's treasure, and 
that " he also became implicated with one Jack Downing in coun- 
terfeiting money, but turned state's evidence and escaped the pen- 
alty." 2 He had in earlier life been a Universalist, but afterward 
became a Methodist. His spiritual welfare gave his wife much 
concern, but although he had " two visions " while living in Ver- 
mont, she did not accept his change of heart. She admits, how- 
ever, that after their removal to New York her husband obeyed 
the scriptural injunction, "your old men shall dream dreams," and 
she mentions several of these dreams, the latest in 18 19, giving 
the particulars of some of them. One sample of these will suffice : 
The dreamer found himself in a beautiful garden, with wide walks 
and a main walk running through the centre. " On each side of 

1 There is equally good authority for placing the house in which Smith was born 
across the line in Royalton. 2 Historical Magazine, 1870. 



THE SMITH FAMILY 



1 1 



this was a richly carved seat, and on each seat were placed six 
wooden images, each of which was the size of a very large man. 
When I came to the first image on the right side it arose, bowed to 
me with much deference. I then turned to the one which sat oppo- 
site to me, on the left side, and it arose and bowed to me in the 
same manner as the first. I continued turning first to the right 
and then to the left until the whole twelve had made the obeisance, 
after which I was entirely healed [of a lameness from which he 
then was suffering]. I then asked my guide the meaning of all 
this, but I awoke before I received an answer." 

A similar wakefulness always manifested itself at the critical 
moment in these dreams. What the world lost by this insomnia 
of the dreamer the world will never know. 

The Smiths' first residence in New York State was in the 
village of Palmyra. There the father displayed a sign, " Cake and 
Beer Shop," selling " gingerbread, pies, boiled eggs, root beer, and 
other like notions," and he and his sons did odd jobs, gardening, 
harvesting, and well-digging, when they could get them. 1 

They were very poor, and Mrs. Smith added to their income 
by painting oil-cloth table covers. After a residence of three years 
and a half in Palmyra, the family took possession of a piece of 
land two miles south of that place, on the border of Manchester. 
They had no title to it, but as the owners were non-resident minors 
they were not disturbed. There they put up a little log house, 
with two rooms on the ground floor and two in the attic, which 
sheltered them all. Later, the elder Smith contracted to buy the 
property and erected a farmhouse on it ; but he never completed 
his title to it. 

While classing themselves as farmers, the Smiths were regarded 
by their neighbors as shiftless and untrustworthy. They sold cord- 
wood, vegetables, brooms of their own manufacture, and maple 
sugar, continuing to vend cakes in the village when any special 
occasion attracted a crowd. It may be remarked here that, while 
Ontario County, New York, was regarded as " out West " by sea- 
board and New England people in 1830, its population was then 
almost as large as it is to-day (having 40,288 inhabitants according 
to the census of 1830 and 48,453 according to the census of 1890). 
The father and several of the boys could not read, and a good 

1 Tucker's "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 12. 



12 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



deal of the time of the younger sons was spent in hunting, fishing, 
and lounging around the village. 

The son Joseph did not rise above the social standing of his 
brothers. The best that a Mormon biographer, Orson Pratt, could 
say of him as a youth was that "He could read without much diffi- 
culty, and write a very imperfect hand, and had a very limited 
understanding of the elementary rules of arithmetic. These were 
his highest and only attainments, while the rest of those branches 
so universally taught in the common schools throughout the United 
States were entirely unknown to him." 1 He was " Joe Smith " to 
every one. Among the younger people he served as a butt for 
jokes, and we are told that the boys who bought the cakes that he 
peddled used to pay him in pewter two-shilling pieces, and that 
when he called at the Palmyra Register office for his father's 
weekly paper, the youngsters in the press room thought it fun to 
blacken his face with the ink balls. 

Here are two pictures of the young man drawn by persons who 
saw him constantly in the days of his vagabondage. The first is 
from Mr. Tucker's book : — 

"At this period in the life and career of Joseph Smith, Jr., or i Joe Smith,' as 
he was universally named, and the Smith family, they were popularly regarded 
as an illiterate, whiskey-drinking, shiftless, irreligious race of people — the first 
named, the chief subject of this biography, being unanimously voted the laziest 
and most worthless of the generation. From the age of twelve to twenty years 
he is distinctly remembered as a dull-eyed, flaxen-haired, prevaricating boy — 
noted only for his indolent and vagabondish character, and his habits of exag- 
geration and untruthfulness. Taciturnity was among his characteristic idiosyn- 
crasies, and he seldom spoke to any one outside of his intimate associates, except 
when first addressed by another ; and then, by reason of his extravagancies of 
statement, his word was received with the least confidence by those who knew 
him best. He could utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvellous absurdity 
with the utmost apparent gravity. He nevertheless evidenced the rapid develop- 
ment of a thinking, plodding, evil-brewing mental composition — largely given to 
inventions of low cunning, schemes of mischief and deception, and false and 
mysterious pretensions. In his moral phrenology the professor might have 
marked the organ of secretiveness as very large, and that of conscientiousness 
omitted. He was, however, proverbially good natured, very rarely, if ever, indulg- 
ing in any combative spirit toward any one, whatever might be the provocation, 
and yet was never known to laugh. Albeit, he seemed to be the pride of his 
indulgent father, who has been heard to boast of him as the i genus of the family,' 
quoting his own expression." 2 

1 " Remarkable Visions." 2 "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 16. 



THE SMITH FAMILY 



13 



The second (drawn a little latter) is by Daniel Hendrix, a resi- 
dent of Palmyra, New York, at the time of which he speaks, and 
an assistant in setting the type and reading the proof of the Mormon 
Bible : — 

'■Every one knew him as Joe Smith. He had lived in Palmyra a few years 
previous to my going there from Rochester. Joe was the most ragged, lazy fellow 
in the place, and that is saying a good deal. He was about twenty-five years old. 
I can see him now in my mind's eye, with his torn and patched trousers held to 
his form by a pair of suspenders made out of sheeting, with his calico shirt as 
dirty and black as the earth, and his uncombed hair sticking through the holes in 
his old battered hat. In winter I used to pity him, for his shoes were so old and 
worn out that he must have suffered in the snow and slush : yet Joe had a jovial, 
easy, don't-care way about him that made him a lot of warm friends. He was a 
good talker, and would have made a fine stump speaker if he had had the train- 
ing. He was known among the young men I associated with as a romancer of 
the first water. I never knew so ignorant a man as Joe was to have such a fertile 
imagination. He never could tell a common occurrence in his daily life without 
embellishing the story with his imagination : yet I remember that he was grieved 
one day when old Parson Reed told Joe that he was going to hell for his lying 
habits." 1 

To this testimony may be added the following declarations, pub- 
lished in 1833, the year in which a mob drove the Mormons out of 
Jackson County, Missouri. The first was signed by eleven of the 
most prominent citizens of Manchester, New York, and the second 
by sixty-two residents of Palmyra : — 

"We. the undersigned, being personally acquainted with the family of Joseph 
Smith. Sr.. with whom the Gold Bible, so called, originated, state : That they 
■were not only a lazy, indolent set of men. but also intemperate, and their word 
was not to be depended upon : and that we are truly glad to dispense with their 
society." 

" We. the undersigned, have been acquainted with the Smith family for a 
number of years, while they resided near this place, and we have no hesitation in 
saying that we consider them destitute of that moral character which ought to 
entitle them to the confidence of any community. They were particularly famous 
for visionary projects ; spent much of their time in digging for money which they 
pretended was hid in the earth, and to this day large excavations may be seen 
in the earth, not far from their residence, where they used to spend their time 
in digging for hidden treasures. Joseph Smith, Sr., and his son Joseph were, in 
particular, considered entirely destitute of moral character, and addicted to vicious 
habits.' 1 2 

1 San Jacinto, California, letter of February 2, 1897, to the St. Louis Globe- 
Democrat. 

2 Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 261. 



14 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Finally may be quoted the following affidavit of Parley Chase: — 

" Manchester, New York, December 2, 1833. I was acquainted with family of 
Joseph Smith, Sr., both before and since they became Mormons, and feel free to state 
that not one of the male members of the Smith family were entitled to any credit 
whatsoever. They were lazy, intemperate, and worthless men, very much addicted 
to lying. In this they frequently boasted their skill. Digging for money was 
their principal employment. In regard to their Gold Bible speculation, they 
scarcely ever told two stories alike. The Mormon Bible is said to be a revelation 
from God, through Joseph Smith, Jr., his Prophet, and this same Joseph Smith, 
Jr., to my knowledge, bore the reputation among his neighbors of being a liar." 1 

The preposterousness of the claims of such a fellow as Smith 
to prophetic powers and divinely revealed information were so 
apparent to his local acquaintances that they gave them little 
attention. One of these has remarked to me in recent years that 
if they had had any idea of the acceptance of Joe's professions by 
a permanent church, they would have put on record a much fuller 
description of him and his family. 

1 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 248. 



CHAPTER III 



HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER 

The elder Smith, as we have seen, was known as a money- 
digger while a resident of Vermont. Of course that subject 
was a matter of conversation in his family, and his sons were 
of a character to share in his belief in the existence of hidden 
treasure. The territory around Palmyra was as good ground for 
their explorations as any in Vermont, and they soon let their 
neighbors know of a possibility of riches that lay within their 
reach. 

The father, while a resident of Vermont, also claimed ability 
to locate an underground stream of water over which would be a 
good site for a well, by means of a forked hazel switch, 1 and in 
this way doubtless increased the demand for his services as a 
well-digger, but we have no testimonials to his success. The son 
Joseph, while still a young lad, professed to have his father's gift 
in this respect, and he soon added to his accomplishments the 
power to locate hidden riches, and in this way began his career 
as a money-digger, which was so intimately connected with his 
professions as a prophet. 

Writers on the origin of the Mormon Bible, and the gradual 
development of Smith the Prophet from Smith the village loafer 
and money-seeker, have left their readers unsatisfied on many 
points. Many of these obscurities will be removed by a very 
careful examination of Joseph's occupations and declarations 
during the years immediately preceding the announcement of 
the revelation and delivery to him of the golden plates. 

1 The so-called " divining rod " has received a good deal of attention from persons 
engaged in psychical research. Vol. XIII, Part II, of the " Proceedings of the Society 
for Psychical Research " is devoted to a discussion of the subject by Professor W. F. 
Barrett of the Royal College of Science for Ireland, in Dublin, and in March, 1890, a 
commission was appointed in France to study the matter. 

15 



i6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The deciding event in Joe's career was a trip to Susquehanna 
County, Pennsylvania, when he was a lad. It can be shown that 
it was there that he obtained an idea of vision-seeing nearly ten 
years before the date he gives in his autobiography as that of 
the delivery to him of the golden plates containing the Book of 
Mormon, and it was there probably that, in some way, he later 
formed the acquaintance of Sidney Rigdon. It can also be 
shown that the original version of his vision differed radically 
from the one presented, after the lapse of another ten years spent 
under Rigdon' s tutelage, in his autobiography. Each of these 
points is of great incidental value in establishing Rigdon's connec- 
tion with the conception of a new Bible, and the manner of its 
presentation to the public. Later Mormon authorities have shown 
a dislike to concede that Joe was a money-digger, but the fact is 
admitted both in his mother's history of him and by himself. His 
own statement about it is as follows : — 

"In the month of October, 1825, I hired with an old gentleman by the name 
of Josiah Stoal, who lived in Chenango County, State of New York. He had 
heard something of a silver mine having been opened by the Spaniards in 
Harmony, Susquehanna County, State of Pennsylvania, and had, previous to my 
hiring with him, been digging in order, if possible, to discover the mine. After 
I went to live with him he took me, among the rest of his hands, to dig for the 
silver mine, at which I continued to work for nearly a month, without success in 
our undertaking, and finally I prevailed with the old gentleman to cease digging 
for it. Hence arose the very prevalent story of my having been a money- 
digger." 1 

Mother Smith's account says, however, that Stoal " came for 
Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys 
by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye " ; 
thus showing that he had a reputation as a " gazer " before that 
date. It was such discrepancies as these which led Brigham 
Young to endeavor to suppress the mother's narrative. 

The "gazing" which Joe took up is one of the oldest — per- 
haps the oldest — form of alleged human divination, and has been 
called " mirror-gazing," "crystal-gazing," " crystal vision," and the 
like. Its practice dates back certainly three thousand years, 
having been noted in all ages, and among nations uncivilized as 
well as civilized. Some students of the subject connect with such 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 6. 



HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER 



17 



divination Joseph's silver cup "whereby indeed he divineth" 
(Genesis xliv. 5). Others, long before the days of Smith and 
Rigdon, advanced the theory that the Urim and Thummim were 
clear crystals intended for " gazing " purposes. One writer 
remarks of the practice, " yEschylus refers it to Prometheus, 
Cicero to the Assyrians and Etruscans, Zoroaster to Ahriman, 
Varro to the Persian Magi, and a very large class of authors, from 
the Christian Fathers and Schoolmen downward, to the devil." 1 
An act of James I (1736), against witchcraft in England, made it a 
crime to pretend to discover property " by any occult or crafty 
science." As indicating the universal knowledge of "gazing," it 
may be further noted that Varro mentions its practice among the 
Romans and Pausanias among the Greeks. It was known to the 
ancient Peruvians. It is practised to-day by East Indians, Afri- 
cans (including Egyptians), Maoris, Siberians, by Australian, 
Polynesian, and Zulu savages, by many of the tribes of American 
Indians, and by persons of the highest culture in Europe and 
America. 2 Andrew Lang's collection of testimony about visions 
seen in crystals by English women in 1897 might seem convincing 
to any one who has not had experience in weighing testimony in 
regard to spiritualistic manifestations, or brought this testimony 
alongside of that in behalf of the "occult phenomena" of Adept 
Brothers presented by Sinnett. 3 

"Gazers" use different methods. Some look into water con- 
tained in a vessel, some into a drop of blood, some into ink, some 
into a round opaque stone, some into mirrors, and many into some 
form of crystal or a glass ball. Indeed, the " gazer " seems to be 
quite independent as to the medium of his sight-seeing, so long as 
he has the " power." This " power " is put also to a great variety 
of uses. Australian savages depend on it to foretell the outcome 
of an attack on their enemies ; Apaches resort to it to discover the 
whereabouts of things lost or stolen ; and Malagasies, Zulus, and 
Siberians " to see what will happen." Perhaps its most general 
use has been to discover lost objects, and in this practice the seers 
have very often been children, as we shall see was the case in the 
exhibition which gave Joe Smith his first idea on the subject. In 

1 "Recent Experiments in Crystal Vision," Vol. V, "Proceedings of the Society for 
Psychical Research." 

2 Lang's "The Making of Religion," Chap. V. 3 "The Occult World." 

C 



i 



18 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the experiments cited by Lang, the seers usually saw distant per- 
sons or scenes, and he records his belief that " experiments have 
proved beyond doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and 
healthy, can see vivid landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, 
in glass balls and other vehicles." 

It can easily be imagined how interested any member of the 
Smith family would have been in an exhibition like that of a 
"crystal-gazer," and we are able to trace very consecutively Joe's 
first introduction to the practice, and the use he made of the hint 
thus given. 

Emily C. Blackman, in the appendix to her " History of Susque- 
hanna County, Pennsylvania" (1873), supplies the needed important 
information about Joe's visits to Pennsylvania in the years preced- 
ing the announcement of his Bible. She says that it is uncertain 
when he arrived at Harmony (now Oakland), " but it is certain he 
was here in 1825 and later." A very circumstantial account of 
Joe's first introduction to a " peep-stone " is given in a statement 
by J. B. Buck in this appendix. He says : — 

"Joe Smith was here lumbering soon after my marriage, which was in 1818, 
some years before he took to ' peeping, 1 and before diggings were commenced 
under his direction. These were ideas he gained later. The stone which he 
afterward used was in the possession of Jack Belcher of Gibson, who obtained it 
while at Salina, N. Y., engaged in drawing salt. Belcher bought it because it was 
said to be a 1 seeing-stone. 1 I have often seen it. It was a green stone, with 
brown irregular spots on it. It was a little longer than a goose's egg, and about 
the same thickness. When he brought it home and covered it with a hat, 
Belcher's little boy was one of the first to look into the hat, and as he did so, he 
said he saw a candle. The second time he looked in he exclaimed, 'I've found 
my hatchet 1 (it had been lost two years), and immediately ran for it to the spot 
shown him through the stone, and it was there. The boy was soon beset by 
neighbors far and near to reveal to them hidden things, and he succeeded mar- 
vellously. Joe Smith, conceiving the idea of making a fortune through a similar 
process of ' seeing, 1 bought the stone of Belcher, and then began his operations 
in directing where hidden treasures could be found. His first diggings were near 
Capt. Buck's sawmill, at Red Rock ; but because the followers broke the rule of 
silence, ' the enchantment removed the deposit. 11 ' 

One of many stories of Joe's treasure-digging, current in that 
neighborhood, Miss Blackman narrates. Learning from a strolling 
Indian of a place where treasure was said to be buried, Joe induced 
a farmer named Harper to join him in digging for it and to spend 
a considerable sum of money in the enterprise. " After digging a 



HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER 19 



great hole, that is still to be seen," the story continues, " Harper 
got discouraged, and was about abandoning the enterprise. Joe 
now declared to Harper that there was an 'enchantment' about 
the place that was removing the treasure farther off ; that Harper 
must get a perfectly white dog (some said a black one), and sprinkle 
his blood over the ground, and that would prevent the ' enchant- 
ment ' from removing the treasure. Search was made all over the 
country, but no perfectly white dog could be found." Then Joe 
said a white sheep would do as well ; but when this was sacrificed 
and failed, he said " The Almighty was displeased with him for 
attempting to palm off on Him a white sheep for a white dog." 
This informant describes Joe at that time as " an imaginative en- 
thusiast, constitutionally opposed to work, and a general favorite 
with the ladies." 

In confirmation of this, R. C. Doud asserted that "in 1822 he 
was employed, with thirteen others, by Oliver Harper to dig for 
gold under Joe's direction on Joseph McKune's land, and that Joe 
had begun operations the year previous." 

F. G. Mather obtained substantially the same particulars of 
Joe's digging in connection with Harper from the widow of Joseph 
McKune about the year 1879, and he said that the owner of the 
farm at that time " for a number of years had been engaged in 
filling the holes with stone to protect his cattle, but the boys still 
use the northeast hole as a swimming pond in the summer." 1 

Confirmation of the important parts of these statements has 
been furnished by Joseph's father. When the reports of the dis- 
covery of a new Bible first gained local currency (in 1830), Fayette 
Lapham decided to visit the Smith family, and learn what he could 
on the subject. He found the elder Smith very communicative, and 
he wrote out a report of his conversation with him, " as near as I can 
repeat his words," he says, and it was printed in the Historical Maga- 
zine for May, 1 870. Father Smith made no concealment of his belief 
in witchcraft and other things supernatural, as well as in the exist- 
ence of a vast amount of buried treasure. What he said of Joe's 
initiation into "crystal-gazing" Mr. Lapham thus records: — 

" His son Joseph, whom he called the illiterate, 2 when he was about fourteen 
years of age, happened to be where a man was looking into a dark stone, and 

1 Lippincotfs Magazine, August, 1880. 

2 Joe's mother, describing Joe's descriptions to the family, at their evening fireside, 



20 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



telling people therefrom where to dig for money and other things. Joseph re- 
quested the privilege of looking into the stone, which he did by putting his face 
into the hat where the stone was. It proved to be not the right stone for. him ; 
but he could see some things, and among them he saw the stone, and where it 
was, in which he could see whatever he wished to see. . . . The place where he 
saw the stone was not far from their house, and under pretence of digging a well, 
they found water and the stone at a depth of twenty or twenty-two feet. After 
this, Joseph spent about two years looking into this stone, telling fortunes, where 
to find lost things, and where to dig for money and other hidden treasures/' 

If further confirmation of Joe's early knowledge on this subject 
is required, we may cite the Rev. John A. Clark, D.D., who, writ- 
ing in 1840 after careful local research, said : " Long before the idea 
of a golden Bible entered their [the Smiths'] minds, in their excur- 
sions for money-digging, . . . Joe used to be usually their guide, 
putting into a hat a peculiar stone he had, through which he looked 
to decide where they should begin to dig." 1 

We come now to the history of Joe's own " peek-stone " (as the 
family generally called it), that which his father says he discovered 
by using the one that he first saw. Willard Chase, of Manches- 
ter, New York, near Palmyra, employed Joe and his brother Alvin 
some time in the year 1822 (as he fixed the date in his affidavit), 2 
to assist him in digging a well. " After digging about twenty feet 
below the surface of the earth," he says, " we discovered a singu- 
larly appearing stone which excited my curiosity. I brought it to 
the top of the well, and as we were examining it, Joseph put it into 
his hat and then his face into the top of the hat. It has been 
said by Smith that he brought the stone from the well, but this is 
false. There was no one in the well but myself. The next morn- 
ing he came to me and wished to obtain the stone, alleging that he 
could see in it ; but I told him I did not wish to part with it on ac- 
count of its being a curiosity, but would lend it. After obtaining 
the stone, he began to publish abroad what wonders he could dis- 
cover by looking in it, and made so much disturbance among the 
credulous part of the community that I ordered the stone to be re- 
turned to me again. He had it in his possession about two years." 

of the angel's revelations concerning the golden plates, says (p. 84) : "All giving the 
most profound attention to a boy eighteen years of age, who had never read the Bible 
through in his life; he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the 
rest of our children." 

1 " Gleanings by the Way " (1842)^.225. 2 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 240. 



HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER 



21 



Joseph's brother Hyrum borrowed the stone some time in 1825, 
and Mr. Chase was unable to recover it afterward. Tucker de- 
scribes it as resembling a child's foot in shape, and " of a whitish, 
glassy appearance, though opaque." 1 

The Smiths at once began turning Chase's stone to their own 
financial account, but no one at the time heard that it was giving 
them any information about revealed religion. For pay they of- 
fered to disclose by means of it the location of stolen property and 
of buried money. There seemed to be no limit to the exaggeration 
of their professions. They would point out the precise spot be- 
neath which lay kegs, barrels, and even hogsheads of gold and sil- 
ver in the shape of coin, bars, images, candlesticks, etc., and they 
even asserted that all the hills thereabout were the work of human 
hands, and that Joe, by using his "peek-stone," could see the cav- 
erns beneath them. 2 Persons can always be found to give at least 
enough credence to such professions to desire to test them. It 
was so in this case. Joe not only secured small sums on the prom- 
ise of discovering lost articles, but he raised money to enable him 
to dig for larger treasure which he was to locate by means of the 
stone. A Palmyra man, for instance, paid seventy-five cents to be 
sent by him on a fool's errand to look for some stolen cloth. 

Certain ceremonies were always connected with these money- 
digging operations. Midnight was the favorite hour, a full moon 
was helpful, and Good Friday was the best date. Joe would some- 
times stand by, directing the digging with a wand. The utmost 
silence was necessary to success. More than once, when the dig- 
ging proved a failure, Joe explained to his associates that,, just as 
the deposit was about to be reached, some one, tempted by the 
devil, spoke, causing the wished-for riches to disappear. Such an 
explanation of his failures was by no means original with Smith, 
the serious results of an untimely spoken word having been long 
associated with divers magic performances. Joe even tried on 
his New York victims the Pennsylvania device of requiring the 
sacrifice of a black sheep to overcome the evil spirit that guarded 
the treasure. William Stafford opportunely owned such an ani- 

1 Tucker closes his chapter about this stone with the declaration " that the origin 
[of Mormonism] is traceable to the insignificant little stone found in the digging of Mr. 
Chase's well in 1819." Tucker was evidently ignorant both of Joe's previous experience 
with " crystal-gazing" in Pennsylvania and of "crystal-gazing" itself. 

2 William Stafford's affidavit, Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 237. 



22 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



mal, and, as he puts it, " to gratify my curiosity," he let the Smiths 
have it. But some new " mistake in the process " again resulted 
in disappointment. " This, I believe," remarks the contributor of 
the sheep, " is the only time they ever made money-digging a prof- 
itable business." The Smiths ate the sheep. 

These money-seeking enterprises were continued from 1820 
to 1827 (the year of the delivery to Smith of the golden plates). 
This period covers the years in which Joe, in his autobiography, 
confesses that he "displayed the corruption of human nature." 
He explains that his father's family were poor, and that they 
worked where they could find employment to their taste ; " some- 
times we were at home and sometimes abroad." Some of these 
trips took them to Pennsylvania, and the stories of Joe's " gazing " 
accomplishment may have reached Sidney Rigdon, and brought 
about their first interview. Susquehanna County was more thinly 
settled than the region around Palmyra, and Joe found persons 
who were ready to credit him with various " gifts"; and stories 
are still current there of his professed ability to perform miracles, 
to pray the frost away from a cornfield, and the like. 1 

1 Lippincotts Magazine, August, 1 880. 



CHAPTER IV 



FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GOLDEN BIBLE 

Just when Smith's attention was originally diverted from the 
discovery of buried money to the discovery of a buried Bible en- 
graved on gold plates remains one of the unexplained points in 
his history. He was so much of a romancer that his own state- 
ments at the time, which were carefully collected by Howe, are 
contradictory. The description given of the buried volume itself 
was changed from time to time, giving strength in this way to the 
theory that Rigdon was attracted to Smith by the rumor of his 
discovery, and afterward gave it shape. First the book was 
announced to be a secular history, says Dr. Clark ; then a gold 
Bible ; then golden plates engraved ; and later metallic plates, 
stereotyped or embossed with golden letters. 1 Daniel Hendrix's 
recollection was that for the first few months Joe did not claim 
for the plates any new revelation or religious significance, but 
simply that they were a historical record of an ancient people. 
This would indicate that he had possession of the " Spaulding 
Manuscript " before it received any theological additions. 

The account of the revelation of the book by an angel, which is 
accepted by the Mormons, is the one elaborated in Smith's auto- 
biography, and was not written until 1838, when it was prepared 
under the direction of Rigdon (or by him). Before examining 
this later version of the story, we may follow a little farther Joe's 
local history at the time. 

While the Smiths were conducting their operations in Pennsyl- 
vania, and Joseph was " displaying the corruption of human 
nature," they boarded for a time in the family of Isaac Hale, who 
is described as a " distinguished hunter, a zealous member of the 
Methodist church," and (as later testified to by two judges of the 
Court of Common Pleas of Susquehanna County) "a man of 

1 " Gleanings by the Wav," d. 229. 
23 



2 4 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



excellent moral character and of undoubted veracity." 1 Mr. Hale 
had three daughters, and Joe received enough encouragement to 
his addresses to Emma to induce him to ask her father's consent 
to their marriage. This consent was flatly refused. Mr. Hale 
made a statement in 1834, covering his knowledge of Smith and 
the origin of the Mormon Bible. 2 When he became acquainted 
with the future prophet, in 1825, Joe was employed by the so- 
called "money-diggers," using his " peek-stone." Among the 
reasons which Mr. Hale gave for refusing consent to the mar- 
riage was that Smith was a stranger and followed a business 
which he could not approve. 

Joe thereupon induced Emma to consent to an elopement, and 
they were married on January 18, 1827, by a justice of the peace, 
just across the line in New York State. Not daring to return to 
the house of his father-in-law, Joe took his wife to his own home, 
near Palmyra, New York, where for some months he worked again 
with his father. 

In the following August Joe hired a neighbor named Peter 
Ingersol to go with him to Pennsylvania to bring from there some 
household effects belonging to Emma. Of this trip Ingersol said, 
in an affidavit made in 1833 : — 

" When we arrived at Mr. Hale's in Harmony, Pa., from which place he had 
taken his wife, a scene presented itself truly affecting. His father-in-law addressed 
Joseph in a flood of tears : ' You have stolen my daughter and married her. I 
had much rather have followed her to her grave. You spend your time in dig- 
ging for money — pretend to see in a stone, and thus try to deceive people.' Jo- 
seph wept and acknowledged that he could not see in a stone now nor never could, 
and that his former pretensions in that respect were false. He then promised to 
give up his old habits of digging for money and looking into stones. Mr. Hale 
told Joseph, if he would move to Pennsylvania and work for a living, he would 
assist him in getting into business. Joseph acceded to this proposition. I then 
returned with Joseph and his wife to Manchester. . . . 

"Joseph told me on his return that he intended to keep the promise which he 
had made to his father-in-law ; i but, 1 said he, ' it will he hard for me, for they [his 
family] will all oppose, as they want me to look in the stone for them to dig money 1 ; 
and in fact it was as he predicted. They urged him day after day to resume his 
old practice of looking in the stone. He seemed much perplexed as to the course 
he should pursue. In this dilemma he made me his confidant, and told me what 
daily transpired in the family of Smiths. 

" One day he came and greeted me with joyful countenance. Upon asking 
the cause of his unusual happiness, he replied in the following language : < As I 
1 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 266. 2 Ibid., p. 262. 



FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GOLDEN BIBLE 2$ 



was passing yesterday across the woods, after a heavy shower of rain, I found in 
a hollow some beautiful white sand that had been washed up by the water. I 
took off my frock and tied up several quarts of it, and then went home. On en- 
tering the house I found the family at the table eating dinner. They were all 
anxious to know the contents of my frock. At that moment I happened to think 
about a history found in Canada, called a Golden Bible ; 1 so I very gravely told 
them it was the Golden Bible. To my surprise they were credulous enough to 
believe what I said. Accordingly I told them I had received a commandment to 
let no one see it, for, says I, no man can see it with the natural eye and live. 
However, I offered to take out the book and show it to them, but they refused to 

see it and left the room. Now,' said Joe, 4 1 have got the d d fools fixed and 

will carry out the fun.' Notwithstanding he told me he had no such book and 
believed there never was such book, he told me he actually went to Willard Chase, 
to get him to make a chest in which he might deposit the Golden Bible. But 
as Chase would not do it, he made the box himself of clapboards, and put it into 
a pillow-case, and allowed people only to lift it and feel of it through the case. 1 ' 2 

In line with this statement of Joe to Ingersol is a statement 
which somewhat later he made to his brother-in-law, Alva Hale, 

that " this ' peeking ' was all d d nonsense ; that he intended 

to quit the business and labor for a livelihood." 3 

Joe's family were quite ready to accept his statement of his 
discovery of golden plates for more reasons than one. They saw 
in it, in the first place, a means of pecuniary gain. Abigail Harris 
in a statement (dated " nth mo., 28th, 1833") of a talk she had 
with Joe's father and mother at Martin Harris's house, said : — 

44 They [the Smiths] said the plates Joe then had in possession were but an 
introduction to the Gold Bible ; that all of them upon which the Bible was written 
were so heavy that it would take four stout men to load them into a cart ; that 
Joseph had also discerned by looking through his stone the vessel in which the 
gold was melted from which the plates were made, and also the machine with 
which they were rolled ; he also discovered in the bottom of the vessel three balls 
of gold, each as large as his fist. The old lady said also that after the book was 
translated, the plates were to be publicly exhibited, admission 25 cts." 4 

But aside from this pecuniary view, the idea of a new Bible 
would have been eagerly accepted by a woman like Mrs. Smith, 
and a mere intimation by Joe of such a discovery would have given 
him, in her, an instigator to the carrying out of the plot. It is said 
that she had predicted that she was to be the mother of a prophet. 
She tells us that, although, in Vermont, she was a diligent church 

1 The most careful inquiries bring no information that any such story was ever 
current in Canada. 

2 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 234. 3 Ibid., p. 268. * Ibid., p. 253. 



26 THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 

attendant, she found all preachers unsatisfactory, and that she 
reached the conclusion that " there was not on earth the religion 
she sought." Joe, in his description of his state of mind just before 
the first visit of the angel who told him about the plates, describes 
himself as distracted by the " war and tumult of opinions." He 
doubtless heard this subject talked of by his mother in the home 
circle, but none of his acquaintances at the time had any reason to 
think that he was laboring under such mental distress. 

The second person in the neighborhood whom Joe approached 
about his discovery was Willard Chase, in whose well the " peek- 
stone " was found. Mr. Chase in his statement (given at length 
by Howe) says that Joe applied to him, soon after the above- 
quoted conversation with Ingersol, to make a chest in which to 
lock up his Gold Book, offering Chase an interest in it as compen- 
sation. He told Chase that the discovery of the book was due to 
the " peek-stone," making no allusion whatever to an angel's visit. 
He and Chase could not come to terms, and Joe accordingly made 
a box in which what he asserted were the plates were placed. 

Reports of Joe's discovery soon gained currency in the neigh- 
borhood through the family's account of it, and neighbors who had 
accompanied them on the money-seeking expeditions came to hear 
about the new Bible, and to request permission to see it. Joe 
warded off these requests by reiterating that no man but him 
could look upon it and live. " Conflicting stories were afterward 
told," says Tucker, " in regard to the manner of keeping the book 
in concealment and safety, which are not worth repeating, further 
than to mention that the first place of secretion was said to be 
under a heavy hearthstone in the Smith family mansion." 

Joe's mother and Parley P. Pratt tell of determined efforts of 
mobs and individuals to secure possession of the plates ; but their 
statements cannot be taken seriously, and are contradicted by 
Tucker from personal knowledge. Tucker relates that two local 
wags, William T. Hussey and Azel Vandruver, intimate acquaint- 
ances of Smith, on asking for a sight of* the book and hearing 
Joe's usual excuse, declared their readiness to risk their lives if 
that were the price of the privilege. Smith was not to be per- 
suaded, but, the story continues, " they were permitted to go to 
the chest with its owner, and see where the thing was, and observe 
its shape and size, concealed under a piece of thick canvas. Smith, 



FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GOLDEN BIBLE 27 



with his accustomed solemnity of demeanor, positively persisting 
in his refusal to uncover it, Hussey became impetuous, and (suiting 
his action to his word) ejaculated, ' Egad, I'll see the critter, live 
or die,' and stripping off the canvas, a large tile brick was ex- 
hibited. But Smith's fertile imagination was equal to the emer- 
gency. He claimed that his friends had been sold by a trick of 
his." 1 

Mother Smith, in her book, gives an account of proceedings in 
court brought by the wife of Martin Harris to protect her hus- 
band's property from Smith, on the plea that Smith was deceiving 
him in alleging the existence of golden plates ; and she relates how 
one witness testified that Joe told him that " the box which he had 
contained nothing but sand," that a second witness swore that 
Joe told him, " it was nothing but a box of lead," and that a third 
witness declared that Joe had told him " there was nothing at all 
in the box." When Joe had once started the story of his discov- 
ery, he elaborated it in his usual way. " I distinctly remember," 
says Daniel Hendrix, " his sitting on some boxes in the store and 
telling a knot of men, who did not believe a word they heard, all 
about his vision and his find. But Joe went into such minute and 
careful details about the size, weight, and beauty of the carvings 
on the golden tablets, and strange characters and the ancient 
adornments, that I confess he made some of the smartest men in 
Palmyra rub their eyes in wonder." 

1 "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 31. 



CHAPTER V 



THE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF THE REVELATION OF THE 

BIBLE 

The precise date when Joe's attention was first called to the 
possibility of changing the story about his alleged golden plates 
so that they would serve as the basis for a new Bible such as was 
finally produced, and as a means of making him a prophet, cannot 
be ascertained. That some directing mind gave the final shape to 
the scheme is shown by the difference between the first accounts 
of his discovery by means of the stone, and the one provided in 
his autobiography. We have also evidence that the story of a 
direct revelation by an angel came some time later than the ver- 
sion which Joe gave first to his acquaintances in Pennsylvania. 

James T. Cobb of Salt Lake City, who has given much time 
to investigating matters connected with early Mormon history, re- 
ceived a letter under date of April 23, 1879, from Hiel and Joseph 
Lewis, sons of the Rev. Nathaniel Lewis, of Harmony, Pennsyl- 
vania, and relatives of Joseph's father-in-law, in which they gave 
the story of the finding of the plates as told in their hearing by 
Joe to their father, when he was translating them. This state- 
ment, in effect, was that he dreamed of an iron box containing 
gold plates curiously engraved, which he must translate into a 
book ; that twice when he attempted to secure the plates he was 
knocked down, and when he asked why he could not have them, 
" he saw a man standing over the spot who, to him, appeared like 
a Spaniard, having a long beard down over his breast, with his 
throat cut from ear to ear and the blood streaming down, who 
told him that he could not get it alone." (He then narrated how 
he got the box in company with Emma.) " In all this narrative 
there was not one word about visions of God, or of angels, or 
heavenly revelations ; all his information was by that dream and 
that bleeding ghost. The heavenly visions and messages of angels ; 

28 



THE REVELATION OF THE BIBLE 



29 



etc., contained in the Mormon books were afterthoughts, revised 
to order." 

In direct confirmation of this we have the following account of 
the disclosure of the buried articles as given by Joe's father to 
Fayette Lapham when the Bible was first published : — 

"Soon after joining the church he [Joseph] had a very singular dream. ... A 
very large, tall man appeared to him dressed in an ancient suit of clothes, and the 
clothes were bloody." (This man told him of a buried treasure, and gave him direc- 
tions by means of which he could find the place. In the course of a year Smith did 
find it, and, visiting it by night, " by some supernatural power " was enabled to 
overturn a huge boulder under which was a square block of masonry, in the 
centre of which were the articles as described.) "Taking up the first article, 
he saw others below ; laying down the first, he endeavored to secure the others ; 
but, before he could get hold of them, the one he had taken up slid back to the 
place he had taken it from, and, to his great surprise and terror, the rock immedi- 
ately fell back to its former place, nearly crushing him [Joseph] in its descent." 
(While trying in vain to raise the rock again with levers, Joseph felt something 
strike him on the breast, a third blow knocking him down ; and as he lay on the 
ground he saw the tall man, who told him that the delivery of the articles would be 
deferred a year because Joseph had not strictly followed the directions given to 
him. The heedless Joseph allowed himself to forget the date fixed for his next 
visit, and when he went to the place again, the tall man appeared and told him 
that, because of his lack of punctuality, he would have to wait still another year 
before the hidden articles would be confided to him. " Come in one year from 
this time, and bring your oldest brother with you," said the guardian of the 
treasures, " then you may have them." Before the date named arrived, the elder 
brother had died, and Joseph decided that his wife was the proper person to 
accompany him. Mr. Lapham 's report proceeds as follows :) 

" At the expiration of the year he [Joseph] procured a horse and light wagon, 
with a chest and pillow-case, and proceeded punctually with his wife to find the 
hidden treasure. When they had gone as far as they could with the wagon, 
Joseph took the pillow-case and started for the rock. Upon passing a fence a 
host of devils began to screech and to scream, and make all sorts of hideous 
yells, for the purpose of terrifying him and preventing the attainment of his 
object ; but Joseph was courageous and pursued his way in spite of them. Arriv- 
ing at the stone, he again lifted it with the aid of superhuman power, as at first, 
and secured the first or uppermost article, this time putting it carefully into the 
pillow-case before laying it down. He now attempted to secure the remainder ; 
but just then the same old man appeared, and said to him that the time had not 
yet arrived for their exhibition to the world, but that when the proper time came 
he should have them and exhibit them, with the one he had now secured ; until 
that time arrived, no one must be allowed to touch the one he had in his posses- 
sion ; for if they did, they would be knocked down by some superhuman power. 
Joseph ascertained that the remaining articles were a gold hilt and chain, and a 
gold ball with two pointers. The hilt and chain had once been part of a sword 



30 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



of unusual size; but the blade had rusted away and become useless. Joseph 
then turned the rock back, took the article in the pillow-case, and returned to the 
wagon. The devils, with more hideous yells than before, followed him to the 
fence ; as he was getting over the fence, one of the devils struck him a blow 
on the side, where a black and blue spot remained three or four days ; but 
Joseph persevered and brought the article safely home. ' I weighed it,' said 
Mr. Smith, Sr., 'and it weighed 30 pounds. 1 In answer to our question as to 
what it was that Joseph had thus obtained, he said it consisted of a set of gold 
plates, about six inches wide and nine or ten inches long. They were in the 
form of a book. 1 ' 1 

We may now contrast these early accounts of the disclosure 
with the version given in the Prophet's autobiography (written, 
be it remembered, in Nauvoo in 1838), the one accepted by all 
orthodox Mormons. One of its striking features will be found 
to be the transformation of the Spaniard-with-his-throat-cut into a 
messenger from Heaven. 2 

It was, according to this later account, when he was in his 
fifteenth year, and when his father's family were " proselyted to 
the Presbyterian church," that he became puzzled by the divergent 
opinions he heard from different pulpits. One day, while reading 
the epistle of James (not a common habit of his, as his mother 
would testify), Joseph was struck by the words, "If any of you 
lack wisdom, let him ask of God." Reflecting on this injunction, 
he retired to the woods " on the morning of a beautiful clear day 
early in the spring of 1820, and there he for the first time uttered 
a spoken prayer." As soon as he began praying he was overcome 
by some power, and "thick darkness" gathered around him. Just 
when he was ready to give himself up as lost, he managed to call 
on God for deliverance, whereupon he saw a pillar of light 
descending upon him, and two personages of indescribable glory 
standing in the air above him, one of whom, calling him by name, 
said to the other, "This is my beloved Son, hear him." Straight- 
way Joseph, not forgetting the main object of his going to the 
woods, asked the two personages "which of all the sects was 
right." He was told that all were wrong, and that he must join 
none of them ; that all creeds were an abomination, and that all 
professors were corrupt. He came to himself lying on his back. 

The effect on the boy of this startling manifestation was not 
radically beneficial, as he himself concedes. " Forbidden to join 

1 Historical Magazine, May, 1 870. 2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt. 



THE REVELATION OF THE BIBLE 



31 



any other religious sects of the day," "of tender years," and badly 
treated by persons who should have been his friends, he admits 
that in the next three years he "frequently fell into many foolish 
errors, and displayed the weakness of youth and the corruption of 
human nature, which, I am sorry to say, led me into diverse temp- 
tations, to the gratification of many appetites offensive in the sight 
of God." It was during this period that he was most active in the 
use of his "peek-stone." 

On the night of September 21, 1823, to proceed with his own 
account, when again praying God for the forgiveness of his sins, 
the room became light, and a person clothed in a robe of exquisite 
whiteness, and having " a countenance truly like lightning," called 
him by name, and said that his visitor was a messenger sent from 
God, and that his name was Nephi. This was a mistake on the 
part of somebody, because the visitor's real name was Moroni, 
who hid the plates where they were deposited. Smith continues : — 

" He said there was a book deposited, written upon golden plates, giving an 
account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the source from whence 
they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel was con- 
tained in it, as delivered by the Saviour to the ancient inhabitants. Also, there 
were two stones in silver bows (and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, con- 
stituted what is called the Urim and Thummim) deposited with the plates, and 
the possession and use of these stones was what constituted seers in ancient or 
former times, and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the 
book. 11 

The messenger then made some liberal quotations from the 
prophecies of the Old Testament (changing them to suit his pur- 
pose), and ended by commanding Smith, when he got the plates, 
at a future date, to show them only to those as commanded, lest 
he be destroyed. Then he ascended into heaven. The next day 
the messenger appeared again, and directed Joseph to tell his father 
of the commandment which he had received. When he had done 
so, his father told him to go as directed. He knew the place (ever 
since known locally as "Mormon Hill") as soon as he arrived 
there, and his narrative proceeds as follows : — 

"Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario Co., N. Y., stands a hill 
of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the 
west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay 
the plates, deposited in a stone box ; this stone was thick and rounded in the 
middle on the upper side, and thinner toward the edges, so that the middle part 



32 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all round was covered with 
earth. Having removed the earth and obtained a lever, which I got fixed under 
the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up, I looked , in, and 
there, indeed, did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim and breastplate, 
as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying 
stones together in a kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two 
stones crosswise of the box, and on these stones lay the plates and the other 
things with them. I made an attempt to take them out, but was forbidden by 
the messenger. I was again informed that the time for bringing them out had 
not yet arrived, neither would till four years from that time ; but he told me that 
I should come to that place precisely one year from that time, and that he would 
there meet with me, and that I should continue to do so until the time should 
come for obtaining the plates." 

Mother Smith gives an explanation of Joe's failure to secure 
the plates on this occasion, which he omits : " As he was taking 
them, the unhappy thought darted through his mind that probably 
there was something else in the box besides the plates, which would 
be of pecuniary advantage to him. . . . Joseph was overcome by 
the power of darkness, and forgot the injunction that was laid 
upon him." The mistakes which the Deity made in Joe's char- 
acter constantly suggest to the lay reader the query why the Urim 
and Thummim were not turned on Joe. 

On September 22, 1827, when Joe visited the hill (following 
his own story again), the same messenger delivered to him the 
plates, the Urim and Thummim and the breastplate, with the warn- 
ing that if he "let them go carelessly " he would be " cut off," and 
a charge to keep them until the messenger called for them. 

Mother Smith's story of the securing of the plates is to the 
effect that about midnight of September 21 Joseph and his wife 
drove away from his father's house with a horse and wagon belong- 
ing to a Mr. Knight. He returned after breakfast the next morn- 
ing, bringing with him the Urim and Thummim, which he showed 
to her, and which she describes as "two smooth, three-cornered 
diamonds set in glass, and the glasses were set in silver bows that 
were connected with each other in much the same way as old-fash- 
ioned spectacles." She says that she also saw the breastplate 
through a handkerchief, and that it " was concave on one side and 
convex on the other, and extended from the neck downward as far 
as the stomach of a man of extraordinary size. It had four straps of 
the same material for the purpose of fastening it to the breast. . . . 



THE REVELATION OF THE BIBLE 



55 



The whole plate was worth at least S500." The spectacles and 
breastplate seem to have been more familiar to Mother Smith than 
to any other of Joseph's contemporaries and witnesses. 

The substitution of the spectacles called Urim and Thummim 
for the "'peek-stone" was doubtless an idea of the associate in the 
plot, who supplied the theological material found in the Golden 
Bible. Tucker considers the "spectacle pretension" an after- 
thought of some one when the scheme of translating the plates 
into a Bible was evolved, as "it was not heard of outside of the 
Smith family for a considerable period subsequent to the first 
storv." 1 This is confirmed by the elder Smith's early account 
of the discovery. It would be very natural that Rigdon, with his 
Bible knowledge, should substitute the more respectable Urim and 
Thummim for the "peek-stone" of ill-repute, as the medium of 
translation. 

The Urim and Thummim were the articles named by the Lord 
to Moses in His description of the priestly garments of Aaron. 
The Bible leaves them without description ; 2 the following verses 
contain all that is said of them : Exodus xxviii. 50 ; Leviticus 
viii. S: Numbers xxvii. 21; Deuteronomy xxxiii. S; 1 Samuel 
xxviii. 6; Ezra ii. 63: Xehemiah vii. 65. Only a pretence of 
using spectacles in the work of translating was kept up, later 
descriptions of the process by Joe's associates referring constantly 
to the employment of the stone. 

Joe says that while the plates were in his possession " multi- 
tudes " tried to get them away from him, but that he succeeded 
in keeping them until they were translated, and then delivered 
them again to the messenger, who still retains them, Mother 
Smith tellb a graphic story of attempts to get the plates away 

1 "Origin. Rise, and Progress of Mormonism." p, 33, 

2 " The Hebrew words are generally considered to be plurales excellentice, denoting 
light (that is, revelation) and truth. . . . There are two principal opinions respecting 
the L'rim and Thummim. One is that these words simply denote the four rows of pre- 
cious stones in the breastplate of the high priest, and are so called from their brilliancy 
and perfection; which stones, in answer to an appeal to God in difficult cases, indicated 
His mind and will by some supernatural appearance. . . . The other principal opinion 
is that the Urim and Thummim were two small oracular images similar to the Teraphim, 
personifying revelation and truth, which were placed in the cavity or pouch formed by 
the folds of the breastplate, and which uttered oracles by a voice. . . . We incline to 
Mr. Mede's opinion that the Urim and Thummim were * things well known to the patri- 
archs ' as divinely appointed means of inquiries of the Lord, suited to an infantile state 
of religion." — " Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature,'" Ritto and Alexander, editors. 

D 



34 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



from her son, and says that when he first received them he hid 
them until the next day in a rotten birch log, bringing them home 
wrapped in his linen frock under his arm. 1 Later, she says, he 
hid them in a hole dug in the hearth of their house, and again in 
a pile of flax in a cooper shop ; Willard Chase's daughter almost 
found them once by means of a peek-stone of her own. 

Mother Smith says that Joseph told all the family of his vision 
the evening of the day he told his father, charging them to keep 
it secret, and she adds : — 

"From that time forth Joseph continued to receive instructions from the 
Lord, and we continued to get the children together every evening for the pur- 
pose of listening while he gave us a relation of the same. I presume our family 
presented an aspect as singular as any that ever lived upon the face of the earth 
— all seated in a circle, father, mother, sons, and daughters, and giving the most 
profound attention to a boy eighteen years old, who had never read the Bible 
through in his life. . . . We were now confirmed in the opinion that God was 
about to bring to light something upon which we could stay our mind, or that 
would give us a more perfect knowledge of the plan of salvation and the redemp- 
tion of the human family." 



1 Elder Hyde in his " Mormonism " estimates that " from the description given of 
them the plates must have weighed nearly two hundred pounds." 



CHAPTER VI 

TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE 

The only one of his New York neighbors who seems to have 
taken a practical interest in Joe's alleged discovery was a farmer 
named Martin Harris, who lived a little north of Palmyra. 
Harris was a religious enthusiast, who had been a Quaker (as 
his wife was still), a Universalist, a Baptist, and a Presbyterian, 
and whose sanity it would have been difficult to establish in a 
surrogate's court. The Rev. Dr. Clark, who knew him intimately, 
says, " He had always been a firm believer in dreams, visions, 
and ghosts." 1 Howe describes him as often declaring that he 
had talked with Jesus Christ, angels, and the devil, and saying 
that " Christ was the handsomest man he ever saw, and the devil 
looked like a jackass, with very short, smooth hair similar to that 
of a mouse." Daniel Hendrix relates that as he and Harris 
were riding to the village one evening, and he remarked on the 
beauty of the moon, Harris replied that if his companion could 
only see it as he had, he might well call it beautiful, explain- 
ing that he had actually visited the moon, and adding that it 
" was only the faithful who were permitted to visit the celestial 
regions." Jesse Townsend, a resident of Palmyra, in a letter 
written in 1833, describes him as a visionary fanatic, unhappily 
married, who " is considered here to this day a brute in his 
domestic relations, a fool and a dupe to Smith in religion, and an 
unlearned, conceited hypocrite generally." His wife, in an affi- 
davit printed in Howe's book (p. 255), says: "He has whipped, 
kicked, and turned me out of the house." Harris, like Joe's 
mother, was a constant reader of and a literal believer in the 
Bible. Tucker says that he " could probably repeat from memory 
every text from the Bible, giving the chapter and verse in each 
case." This seems to be an exaggeration. 

1 " Gleanings by the Way." 
35 



36 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Mother Smith's account of Harris's early connection with the 
Bible enterprise says that her husband told Harris of the exist- 
ence of the plates two or three years before Joe got possession of 
them ; that when Joe secured them he asked her to go and tell 
Harris that he wanted to see him on the subject, an errand not to 
her liking, because " Mr. Harris's wife was a very peculiar 
woman," that is, she did not share in her husband's superstition. 
Mrs. Smith did not succeed in seeing Harris, but he soon after- 
ward voluntarily offered Joe fifty dollars " for the purpose of help- 
ing Mr. Smith do the Lord's work." As Harris was very "close" 
in money matters, it is probable that Joe offered him a partnership 
in the scheme at the start. Harris seems to have placed much 
faith in the selling quality of the new Bible. He is said to have 
replied to his wife's early declaration of disbelief in it : " What if 
it is a lie. If you will let me alone I will make money out of it." 1 
The Rev. Ezra Booth said : " Harris informed me [after his re- 
moval to Ohio] that he went to the place where Joseph resided 
[in Pennsylvania], and Joseph had given it [the translation] up 
on account of the opposition of his wife and others ; and he told 
Joseph, ' I have not come down here for nothing, and we will go 
on with it.'" 2 

Just at this time Joe was preparing to move to the neighbor- 
hood of Harmony, Pennsylvania, having made a trip there after his 
marriage, during which, Mr. Hale's affidavit says, " Smith stated 
to me that he had given up what he called ' glass-looking,' and that 
he expected to work hard for a living and was willing to do so." 
Smith's brother-in-law Alva, in accordance with arrangements 
then made, went to Palmyra and helped move his effects to a 
house near Mr. Hale's. Joe acknowledges that Harris's gift or 
loan of fifty dollars enabled him to meet the expenses of moving. 

Parley P. Pratt, in a statement published by him in London in 
1854, set forth that Smith was driven to Pennsylvania from 
Palmyra through fear of his life, and that he took the plates with 
him concealed in a barrel of beans, thus eluding the efforts of 
persons who tried to secure them by means of a search warrant. 
Tucker says that this story rests only on the sending of a 
constable after Smith by a man to whom he owed a small debt. 
The great interest manifested in the plates in the neighborhood 

1 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 254. 2 Ibid., p. 182. 



TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE 37 



of Palmyra existed only in Mormon imagination developed in 
later years. 

According to some accounts, all the work of what was called 
" translating " the writing on the plates into what became the 
" Book of Mormon " was done at Joe's home in New York State, 
and most of it in a cave, but this was not the case. Smith himself 
says : " Immediately after my arrival [in Pennsylvania] I com- 
menced copying the characters off the plates. I copied a consid- 
erable number of them, and by means of the Urim and Thummim 
I translated some of them, which I did between the time I arrived 
at the house of my wife's father in the month of December [1827] 
and the February following." 

A clear description of the work of translating as carried on 
in Pennsylvania is given in the affidavit made by Smith's father- 
in-law, Isaac Hale, in 1834. 1 He says that soon after Joe's removal 
to his neighborhood with his wife, he (Hale) was shown a box 
such as is used for the shipment of window glass, and was told 
that it contained the " book of plates " ; he was allowed to lift it, 
but not to look into it. Joe told him that the first person who 
would be allowed to see the plates would be a young child. 2 The 
affidavit continues : — 

"About this time Martin Harris made his appearance upon the stage, and 
Smith began to interpret the characters, or hieroglyphics, which he said were 
engraven upon the plates, while Harris wrote down the interpretation. It was 
said that Harris wrote down 1 16 pages and lost them. Soon after this happened, 
Martin Harris informed me that he must have a greater witness, and said that he 
had talked with Joseph about it. Joseph informed him that he could not, or 
durst not, show him the plates, but that he [Joseph] would go into the woods 
where the book of plates was, and that after he came back Harris should follow 
his track in the snow, and find the book and examine it for himself. Harris 
informed me that he followed Smith's directions, and could not find the plates 
and was still dissatisfied. 

"The next day after this happened I went to the house where Joseph 
Smith, Jr., lived, and where he and Harris were engaged in their translation of 
the book. Each of them had a written piece of paper which they were com- 
paring, and some of the words were, i my servant seeketh a greater witness, but 
no greater witness can be given him. 1 ... I inquired whose words they were, 
and was informed by Joseph or Emma (I rather think it was the former), that 

1 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 264. 

2 Joe's early announcement was that his first-born child was to have this power, but 
the child was born dead. This was one of the earliest of Joe's mistakes in prophesying. 



I 



38 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



they were the words of Jesus Christ. I told them that I considered the whole 
of it a delusion, and advised them to abandon it. The manner in which he 
pretended to read and interpret was the same as when he looked for the money- 
diggers, with the stone in his hat and his hat over his face, while the book of 
plates was at the same time hid in the woods. 

" After this, Martin Harris went away, and Oliver Cowdery came and wrote 
for Smith, while he interpreted as above described. . . . 

"Joseph Smith, Jr., resided near me for some time after this, and I had a 
good opportunity of becoming acquainted with him, and somewhat acquainted 
with his associates ; and I conscientiously believe, from the facts 1 have detailed, 
and from many other circumstances which I do not deem it necessary to relate, 
that the whole Book of Mormon (so-called) is a silly fabrication of falsehood 
and wickedness, got up for speculation, and with a design to dupe the credulous 
and unwary." 

Harris's natural shrewdness in a measure overcame his fanati- 
cism, and he continued to press Smith for a sight of the plates. 
Smith thereupon made one of the first uses of those "revelations" 
which played so important a part in his future career, and he 
announced one (Section 5, " Doctrine and Covenants " 1 ), in which 
"I, the Lord" declared to Smith that the latter had entered into 
a covenant with Him not to show the plates to any one except as 
the Lord commanded him. Harris finally demanded of Smith at 
least a specimen of the writing on the plates for submission to 
experts in such subjects. As Harris was the only man of means 
interested in this scheme of publication, Joe supplied him with a 
paper containing some characters which he said were copied from 
one of the plates. This paper increased Harris's belief in the 
reality of Joe's discovery, but he sought further advice before 
opening his purse. Dr. Clark describes a call Harris made on 
him early one morning, greatly excited, requesting a private inter- 
view. On hearing his story, Dr. Clark advised him that the 
scheme was a hoax, devised to extort money from him, but Harris 
showed the slip of paper containing the mysterious characters, 
and was not to be persuaded. 

Seeking confirmation, however, Harris made a trip to New 
York City in order to submit the characters to experts there. 
Among others, he called on Professor Charles Anthon. His inter- 
view with Professor Anthon has been a cause of many and con- 
flicting statements, some Mormons misrepresenting it for their own 

1 All references to the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants " refer to the sections and 
verses of the Salt Lake City edition of 1890. 



TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE 39 



purposes and others explaining away the professor's accounts of it. 
The following statement was written by Professor Anthon in reply 
to an inquiry by E. D. Howe : — 

"New York, February 17, 1834. 

" Dear Sir : I received your favor of the 9th, and lose no time in making a 
reply. The whole story about my pronouncing the Mormon inscription to be 
' reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics 1 is perfectly false. Some years ago a plain, 
apparently simple-hearted farmer called on me with a note from Dr. Mitchell, of 
our city, now dead, requesting me to decypher, if possible, the paper which the 
farmer would hand me, and which Dr. M. confessed he had been unable to under- 
stand. Upon examining the paper in question, I soon came to the conclusion 
that it was all a trick — perhaps a hoax. When I asked the person who brought it 
how he obtained the writing, he gave me, as far as I can recollect, the following 
account : A ' gold book 1 consisting of a number of plates fastened together in 
the shape of a book by wires of the same metal, had been dug up in the northern 
part of the state of New York, and along with the book an enormous pair of 
' spectacles 1 ! These spectacles were so large that, if a person attempted to 
look through them, his two eyes would have to be turned toward one of the 
glasses merely, the spectacles in question being altogether too large for the 
breadth of the human face. Whoever examined the plates through the spectacles, 
was enabled, not only to read them, but fully to understand their meaning. All 
this knowledge, however, was confined to a young man who had the trunk con- 
taining the book and spectacles in his sole possession. This young man was 
placed behind a curtain in the garret of a farmhouse, and being thus concealed 
from view, put on the spectacles occasionally, or rather, looked through one of 
the glasses, decyphered the characters in the book, and, having committed some 
of them to paper, handed copies from behind the curtain to those who stood on 
the outside. Not a word, however, was said about the plates being decyphered 
' by the gift of God.' Everything in this way was effected by the large pair 
of spectacles. The farmer added that he had been requested to contribute a 
sum of money toward the publication of the 'golden book,' the contents of 
which would, as he had been assured, produce an entire change in the world, and 
save it from ruin. So urgent had been these solicitations, that he intended sell- 
ing his farm, and handing over the amount received to those who wished to pub- 
lish the plates. As a last precautionary step, however, he had resolved to come 
to New York, and obtain the opinion of the learned about the meaning of the 
paper which he had brought with him, and which had been given him as part of 
the contents of the book, although no translation had been furnished at the time 
by the young man with the spectacles. On hearing this odd story, I changed my 
opinion about the paper, and, instead of viewing it any longer as a hoax upon the 
learned, I began to regard it as a part of a scheme to cheat the farmer of his 
money, and I communicated my suspicions to him, warning him to beware of 
rogues. He requested an opinion from me in writing, which, of course, I declined 
giving, and he then took his leave, carrying his paper with him. 

"This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of 



4Q 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



crooked characters, disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by 
some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. 
Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted, or 
placed sideways, were arranged and placed in perpendicular columns ; and the 
whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle, divided into various compartments, 
decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Cal- 
endar, given by Humbolt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source 
whence it was derived. I am thus particular as to the contents of the paper, inas- 
much as I have frequently conversed with my friends on the subject since the 
Mormonite excitement began, and well remember that the paper contained any- 
thing else but ' Egyptian Hieroglyphics. 1 

" Some time after, the farmer paid me a second visit. He brought with him 
the golden book in print, and offered it to me for sale. I declined purchasing. 
He then asked permission to leave the book with me for examination. I declined 
receiving it, although his manner was strangely urgent. I adverted once more to 
the roguery which had been, in my opinion, practised upon him, and asked him 
what had become of the gold plates. He informed me that they were in a trunk 
with the large pair of spectacles. I advised him to go to a magistrate, and 
have the trunk examined. He said 'the curse of God' would come upon him 
should he do this. On my pressing him, however, to pursue the course which I 
had recommended, he told me he would open the trunk if I would take ' the 
curse of God ' upon myself. I replied I would do so with the greatest willing- 
ness, and would incur every risk of that nature provided I could only extricate 
him from the grasp of the rogues. He then left me. 

"I have thus given you a full statement of all that I know respecting the 
origin of Mormonism, and must beg you, as a personal favor, to publish this letter 
immediately, should you find my name mentioned again by these wretched fanatics. 

" Yours respectfully, 

"Charles Anthon." 1 

While Mormon speakers quoted Anthon as vouching for the 
mysterious writing, their writers were more cautious. P. P. Pratt, 
in his "Voice of Warning" (1837), said that Professor Anthon was 
unable to decipher the characters, " but he presumed that if the 
original records could be brought, he could assist in translating 
them." Orson Pratt, in his " Remarkable Visions " (1848), saw in 
the Professor's failure only a verification of Isaiah xxix. 1 1 and 12 : — 

" And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is 
sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee : 
and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed : and the book is delivered to him that is 
not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he saith, I am not learned." 

1 "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 270-272. A letter from Professor Anthon to the 
Rev. Dr. Coit, rector of Trinity Church, New Rochelle, New York, dated April 3, 1841, 
containing practically the same statement, will be found in Clark's " Cleanings by the 
Way," pp. 233-238. 



o 

n 

1 



3 



s ^ 



S 1 

O OS 

« s 

g " 

« 5 

a a 

»; 

fa % 
3 S 

s * 

H W 

a h 
o a 
u 

a 

H 5 

c« a 

■O H 

* 2 
o < 



8 § 

52 a 

e 5 



fa 52 
O 

fa O 

•J o 

£ « 

CM eg 

S I 

a * 

^ a 

B 9 

o 

3-8 

a 55 

£ g. 

SI 8 



2.3 



* 9 

51' « 



© a 



a . 

% 3 

OS >H 

o * 

in, 3 

w 5 



3 1 



a •< 

s § 



PS o 



5 § 



» a 



o4 



I 

I 

>■ 



5(5 



•nokuok jo *ooa aiix houj suaxavaviiD 



Of 



TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE 41 

John D. Lee, in his " Mormonism Unveiled," mentions the 
generally used excuse of the Mormons for the professor's failure 
to translate the writing, namely, that Anthon told Harris that 
" they were written in a sealed language, unknown to the present 
age." Smith, in his autobiography, quotes Harris's account of his 
interview as follows : — 

"I went to New York City and presented the characters which had been 
translated, with the translation thereof, to Prof. Anthon, a man quite celebrated 
for his literary attainments. Prof. Anthon stated that the translation was cor- 
rect, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then 
shewed him those which were not yet translated, and he said they were Egyp- 
tian, Chaldaic. Assyriac, and Arabic, and he said they were the true characters." 

Harris declared that the professor gave him a certificate to this 
effect, but took it back and tore it up when told that an angel of 
God had revealed the plates to Joe, saying that " there were no 
such things as ministering angels." This account by Harris of 
his interview with Professor Anthon will assist the reader in esti- 
mating the value of Harris's future testimony as to the existence 
of the plates. 

Harris's trip to New York City was not entirely satisfactory to 
him, and, as Smith himself relates, " He began to tease me to give 
him liberty to carry the writings home and show them, and desired 
of me that I would enquire of the Lord through the Urim and 
Thummim if he might not do so." Smith complied with this 
request, but the permission was twice refused ; the third time it 
was granted, but on condition that Harris would show the manu- 
script translation to only five persons, who were named, one of 
them being his wife. 

In including Mrs. Harris in this list, the Lord made one of 
the greatest mistakes into which he ever fell in using Joe as a 
mouthpiece. Mrs. Harris's Quaker belief had led her from the 
start to protest against the Bible scheme, and to warn her husband 
against the Smith family, and she vigorously opposed his invest- 
ment of any money in the publication of the book. On the occa- 
sion of his first visit to Joe in Pennsylvania, according to Mother 
Smith, Mrs. Harris was determined to accompany him, and he had 
to depart without her knowledge ; and when he went the second 
time, she did accompany him, and she ransacked the house to find 
the " record " (as the plates are often called in the Smiths' writ- 



42 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



ings). When Harris returned home with the translated pages 
which Joe intrusted to him (in July, 1828), he showed them to his 
family and to others, who tried in vain to convince him that he 
was a dupe. Mrs. Harris decided on a more practical course. 
Getting possession of the papers, where Harris had deposited them 
for safe keeping, she refused to restore them to him. What eventu- 
ally became of them is uncertain, one report being that she after- 
ward burned them. 

This should have caused nothing more serious in the way of 
delay than the time required to retranslate these pages ; for cer- 
tainly a well-equipped Divinity, who was revealing a new Bible to 
mankind, and supplying so powerful a means of translation as the 
Urim and Thummim, could empower the translator to repeat the 
words first written. Indeed, the descriptions of the method of 
translation given afterward by Smith's confederates would seem to 
prove that there could have been but one version of any transla- 
tion of the plates, no matter how many times repeated. Thus, 
Harris described the translating as follows : — 

" By aid of the seer stone [no mention of the magic spectacles] sentences 
would appear and were read by the prophet and written by Martin, and, when 
finished, he would say ' written ' ; and if correctly written, that sentence would 
disappear, and another appear in its place ; but if not written correctly, it remained 
until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, 
precisely in the language then used." 1 

David Whitmer, in an account of this process written in his 
later years, said : — 

"Joseph would put the seer stone into a hat [more testimony against the use 
of the spectacles] and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face 
to exclude the light ; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A 
piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the 
writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the translation 
in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to O. Cowdery, who was 
his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph 
to see if it were correct, then it would disappear and another character with the 
interpretation would appear." 2 

But to Joseph the matter of reproducing the lost pages of the 
translation did not seem simple. When Harris's return to Penn- 
sylvania was delayed, Joe became anxious and went to Palmyra to 

1 Elder Edward Stevenson in the Deseret News (quoted in Reynold's " Mystery of 
the Manuscript Fund," p. 91). 2 "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon." 



TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE 43 



learn what delayed him, and there he heard of Mrs. Harris's theft 
of the pages. His mother reports him as saying in announcing it, 
"O my God, all is lost! all is lost!" Why the situation was as 
serious to a sham translator as it would have been simple to an 
honest one is easily understood. Whenever Smith offered a second 
translation of the missing pages which differed from the first, a 
comparison of them with the latter would furnish proof positive of 
the fraudulent character of his pretensions. 

All the partners in the business had to share in the punishment 
for what had occurred. The Smiths lost all faith in Harris. Joe 
says that Harris broke his pledge about showing the translation 
only to five persons, and Mother Smith says that because of this 
offence " a dense fog spread itself over his fields and blighted his 
wheat." When Joe returned to Pennsylvania an angel appeared to 
him, his mother says, and ordered him to give up the Urim and 
Thummim, promising, however, to restore them if he was humble 
and penitent, and " if so, it will be on the 226. of September." 1 
Here may be noted one of those failures of mother and son to 
agree in their narratives which was excuse enough for Brigham 
Young to try to suppress the mother's book. Joe mentions a 
"revelation" dated July, 1828 (Sec. 3, "Doctrine and Cove- 
nants "), in which Harris was called " a wicked man," and which 
told Smith that he had lost his privileges for a season, and he 
adds, " After I had obtained the above revelation, both the plates 
and the Urim and Thummim were taken from me again, but in a 
few days they were returned to me." 2 

For some ten months after this the work of translation was 
discontinued, although Mother Smith says that when she and his 
father visited the prophet in Pennsylvania two months after his 
return, the first thing they saw was "a red morocco trunk lying 
on Emma's bureau which, Joseph shortly informed me, contained 
the Urim and Thummim and the plates." Mrs. Harris's act had 
evidently thrown the whole machinery of translation out of gear, 
and Joe had to await instructions from his human adviser before 
a plan of procedure could be announced. During this period (in 
which Joe says he worked on his father's farm), says Tucker, " the 
stranger [supposed to be Rigdon] had again been at Smith's, and 

1 "Biographical Sketches," by Lucy Smith, p. 125. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 8. 



44 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the prophet had been away from home, maybe to repay the 
former's visits." 1 

Two matters were decided on in these consultations, viz., that 
no attempt would be made to retranslate the lost pages, and that a 
second copy of all the rest of the manuscript should be prepared, 
to guard against a similar perplexity in case of the loss of later 
pages. The proof of the latter statement I find in the fact that a 
second copy did exist. Ebenezer Robinson, who was a leading 
man in the church from the time of its establishment in Ohio until 
Smith's death, says in his recollections that, when the people 
assembled on October 2, 1841, to lay the corner-stone of Nauvoo 
House, Smith said he had a document to put into the corner-stone, 
and Robinson went with him to his house to procure it. Robinson's 
story proceeds as follows : — 

" He got a manuscript copy of the Book of Mormon, and brought it into the 
room where we were standing, and said, < I will examine to see if it is all here 1 ; and 
as he did so I stood near him, at his left side, and saw distinctly the writing as he 
turned up the pages until he hastily went through the book and satisfied himself 
that it was all there, when he said, ' I have had trouble enough with this thing' ; 
which remark struck me with amazement, as I looked upon it as a sacred treasure. 11 

Robinson says that the manuscript was written on foolscap paper 
and most of it in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting. He explains that 
two copies were necessary, " as the printer who printed the first edi- 
tion of the book had to have a copy, as they would not put the origi- 
nal copy into his hands for fear of its being altered. This accounts 
for David Whitmer having a copy and Joseph Smith having one." 2 

Major Bideman, who married the prophet's widow, partly com- 
pleted and occupied Nauvoo House after the departure of the 
Mormons for Utah, and some years later he took out the corner- 
stone and opened it, but found the manuscript so ruined by mois- 
ture that only a little was legible. 

1 " Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 48. 

2 The Return, Vol. II, p. 314. Ebenezer Robinson, a printer, joined the Mormons 
at Kirtland, followed Smith to Missouri, and went with the flock to Nauvoo, where he 
and the prophet's brother, Don Carlos, established the Times and Seasons. When the 
doctrine of polygamy was announced to him and his wife, they rejected it, and he fol- 
lowed Rigdon to Pennsylvania when Rigdon was turned out by Young. In later years 
he was engaged in business enterprises in Iowa, and was a resident of Davis City when 
David Whitmer announced the organization of his church in Missouri, and, not accept- 
ing the view of the prophet entertained by his descendants in the Reorganized Church, 
Robinson accepted baptism from Whitmer. The Return was started by him in January, 
1SS9, and continued until his death, in its second year. His reminiscences of early 
Mormon experiences, which were a feature of the publication, are of value. 



TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE 45 



In regard to the missing pages, it was decided to announce a 
revelation, which is dated May, 1829 (Sec. 10, " Doctrine and Cove- 
nants '"), stating that the lost pages had got into the hands of 
wicked men, that " Satan has put it into their hearts to alter the 
words which you have caused to be written, or which you have 
translated," in accordance with a plan of the devil to destroy 
Smith's work. He was directed therefore to translate from the 
plates of Nephi, which contained a " more particular account " than 
the Book of Lehi from which the original translation was made. 

When Smith began translating again, Harris was not reem- 
ployed, but Emma, the prophet's wife, acted as his scribe until 
April 15, 1829, when a new personage appeared upon the scene. 
This was Oliver Cowdery. 

Cowdery was a blacksmith by trade, but gave up that occupa- 
tion, and, while Joe was translating in Pennsylvania, secured the 
place of teacher in the district where the Smiths lived, and boarded 
with them. They told him of the new Bible, and, according to 
Joe's later account, Cowdery for himself received a revelation of its 
divine character, went to Pennsylvania, and from that time was 
intimately connected with Joe in the translation and publication of 
the book. 

In explanation of the change of plan necessarily adopted in the 
translation, the following preface appeared in the first edition of 
the book, but was dropped later : — 

"To the Reader. 

" As many false reports have been circulated respecting the following work, 
and also many unlawful measures taken by evil designing persons to destroy me, 
and also the work, I would inform you that I translated, by the gift and power of 
God, and caused to be written, one hundred and sixteen pages, the which I took 
from the book of Lehi, which was an account abridged from the plates of Lehi, 
by the hand of Mormon ; which said account, some person or persons have stolen 
and kept from me, notwithstanding my utmost efforts to recover it again — and 
being commanded of the Lord that I should not translate the same over again, 
for Satan had put it into their hearts to tempt the Lord their God, by altering the 
words ; that they did read contrary from that which I translated and caused to be 
written : and if I should bring forth the same words again, or, in other words, if 
I should translate the same over again, they would publish that which they had 
stolen, and Satan would stir up the hearts of this generation, that they might not 
receive this work, but behold, the Lord said unto me, I will not suffer that Satan 
shall accomplish his evil design in this thing ; therefore thou shalt translate from 
the plates of Nephi until ye come to that which ye have translated, which ye have 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



retained ; and behold, ye shall publish it as the record of Nephi ; and thus I will 
confound those who have altered my words. I will not suffer that they shall de- 
stroy my work ; yea, I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the 
cunning of the Devil. Wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of 
God, I have, through His grace and mercy, accomplished that which He hath com- 
manded me respecting this thing. I would also inform you that the plates of 
which hath been spoken, were found in the township of Manchester, Ontario 
County, New York. — The Author." 

In June, 1829, Smith accepted an invitation to change his resi- 
dence to the house of Peter Whitmer, who, with his sons, David, 
John, and Peter, Jr., lived at Fayette, Seneca County, New York, 
the Whitmers promising his board free and their assistance in the 
work of translation. There, Smith says, they resided " until the 
translation was finished and the copyright secured." 

As five of the Whitmers were " witnesses " to the existence of 
the plates, and David continued to be a person of influence in 
Mormon circles throughout his long life, information about them 
is of value. The prophet's mother again comes to our aid, although 
her account conflicts with her son's. The prophet says that David 
Whitmer brought the invitation to take up quarters at his father's, 
and volunteered the offer of free board and assistance. Mother 
Smith says that one day, as Joe was translating the plates, he came, 
in the midst of the words of the Holy Writ, to a commandment to 
write at once to David Whitmer, requesting him to come immedi- 
ately and take the prophet and Cowdery to his house, " as an evil- 
designing people were seeking to take away his [Joseph's] life in 
order to prevent the work of God from going forth to the world." 
When the letter arrived, David's father told him that, as they had 
wheat sown that would require two days' harrowing, and a quantity 
of plaster to spread, he could not go "unless he could get a witness 
from God that it was absolutely necessary." In answer to his 
inquiry of the Lord on the subject, David was told to go as soon 
as his wheat was harrowed in. Setting to work, he found that at 
the end of the first day the two days' harrowing had been com- 
pleted, and, on going out the next morning to spread the plaster, he 
found that work done also, and his sister told him she had seen 
three unknown men at work in the field the day before : so that 
the task had been accomplished by " an exhibition of supernatural 
power." 1 

1 "Biographical Sketches," Lucy Smith, p. 135. 



TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE 



47 



The translation being read)' for the press, in June, 1S29 (I fol- 
low Tucker's account of the printing of the work), Joseph, his 
brother Hyrum, Cowdery, and Harris asked Egbert B. Grandin, 
publisher of the Wayne Sentinel at Palmyra, to give them an esti- 
mate of the cost of printing an edition of three thousand copies, 
with Harris as security for the payment. Grandin told them he 
did not want to undertake the job at any price, and he tried to 
persuade Harris not to invest his money in the scheme, assuring 
him that it was fraudulent. Application was next made to Thur- 
low Weed, then the publisher of the Anti-Hfasonie Inquirer, at 
Rochester, New York. "After reading a few chapters," says Mr. 
Weed, "it seemed such a jumble of unintelligent absurdities that 
we refused the work, advising Harris not to mortgage his farm and 
beggar his family." Finally, Smith and his associates obtained 
from Elihu F. Marshall, a Rochester publisher, a definite bid for 
the work, and with this they applied again to Grandin, explaining 
that it would be much more convenient for them to have the print- 
ing done at home, and pointing out to him that he might as well 
take the job, as his refusal would not prevent the publication of the 
book. This argument had weight with him, and he made a defi- 
nite contract to print and bind five thousand copies for the sum of 
$3000, a mortgage on Harris's farm to be given him as security. 
Mrs. Harris had persisted in her refusal to be in any way a party 
to the scheme, and she and her husband had finally made a legal 
separation, with a division of the property, after she had entered a 
complaint against Joe, charging him with getting money from her 
husband on fraudulent representation. At the hearing on this 
complaint, Harris denied that he had ever contributed a dollar to 
Joe at the latter's persuasion. 

Tucker, who did much of the proof-reading of the new Bible, 
comparing it with the manuscript copy, says that, when the print- 
ing began, Smith and his associates watched the manuscript with 
the greatest vigilance, bringing to the office every morning as 
much as the printers could set up during the day, and taking it 
away in the evening, forbidding also any alteration. The fore- 
man, John H. Gilbert, found the manuscript so poorly prepared 
as regards grammatical construction, spelling, punctuation, etc., 
that he told them that some corrections must be made, and to this 
they finally consented. 



4 8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Daniel Hendrix, in his recollections, says in confirmation of 
this : — 

" I helped to read proof on many pages of the book, and at odd times set 
some type. . . . The penmanship of the copy furnished was good, but the 
grammar, spelling and punctuation were done by John H. Gilbert, who was chief 
compositor in the office. I have heard him swear many a time at the syntax and 
orthography of Cowdery, and declare that he would not set another line of the 
type. There were no paragraphs, no punctuation and no capitals. All that was 
done in the printing office, and what a time there used to be in straightening sen- 
tences out, too. During the printing of the book I remember that Joe Smith kept 
in the background." 

The following letter is in reply to an inquiry addressed by me 
to Albert Chandler, the only survivor, I think, of the men who 
helped issue the first edition of Smith's book : — 

"COLDWATER, MlCH., Dec. 22, 1898. 

" My recollections of Joseph Smith Jr. and of the first steps taken in regard 
to his Bible have never been printed. At the time of the printing of the Mormon 
Bible by Egbert B. Grandin of the Sentinel I was an apprentice in the book- 
bindery connected with the Sentinel office. I helped to collate and stitch the 
Gold Bible, and soon after this was completed, I changed from book-binding to 
printing. I learned my trade in the Sentinel office. 

" My recollections of the early history of the Mormon Bible are vivid to-day. 
I knew personally Oliver Cowdery, who translated the Bible, Martin Harris, who 
mortgaged his farm to procure the printing, and Joseph Smith Jr., but slightly. 
What I knew of him was from hearsay, principally from Martin Harris, who 
believed fully in him. Mr. Tucker's 1 Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormon- 
ism ' is the fullest account I have ever seen. I doubt if I can add anything to 
that history. 

" The whole history is shrouded in the deepest mystery. Joseph Smith Jr., 
who read through the wonderful spectacles, pretended to give the scribe the ex- 
act reading of the plates, even to spelling, in which Smith was wofully deficient. 
Martin Harris was permitted to be in the room with the scribe, and would try the 
knowledge of Smith, as he told me, saying that Smith could not spell the word 
February, when his eyes were off the spectacles through which he pretended to 
work. This ignorance of Smith was proof positive to him that Smith was de- 
pendent on the spectacles for the contents of the Bible. Smith and the plates 
containing the original of the Mormon Bible were hid from view of the scribe 
and Martin Harris by a screen. 

" I should think that Martin Harris, after becoming a convert, gave up his 
entire time to advertising the Bible to his neighbors and the public generally in 
the vicinity of Palmyra. He would call public meetings and address them him- 
self. He was enthusiastic, and went so far as to say that God, through the Latter 
Day Saints, was to rule the world. I heard him make this statement, that there 



TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE 



49 



would never be another President of the United States elected ; that soon all 
temporal and spiritual power would be given over to the prophet Joseph Smith 
and the Latter Day Saints. His extravagant statements were the laughing stock 
of the people of Palmyra. His stories were hissed at, universally. To give you 
an idea of Mr. Harris's superstitions, he told me that he saw the devil, in all his 
hideousness, on the road, just before dark, near his farm, a little north of Pal- 
myra. You can see that Harris was a fit subject to carry out the scheme of 
organizing a new religion. 

" The absolute secrecy of the whole inception and publication of the Mormon 
Bible estopped positive knowledge. We only knew what Joseph Smith would 
permit Martin Harris to publish, in reference to the whole thing. 

"The issuing of the Book of Mormon scarcely made a ripple of excitement 
in Palmyra. Albert Chandler. 111 

The book was published early in 1830. On paper the sale of 
the first edition showed a profit of $3250 at J 1.25 a volume, that 
being the lowest price to be asked on pain of death, according to 
a " special revelation " received by Smith. By the original agree- 
ment Harris was to have the exclusive control of the sale of the 
book. But it did not sell. The local community took it no more 
seriously than they did Joe himself and his family. The printer 
demanded his pay as the work progressed, and it became neces- 
sary for Smith to spur Harris on by announcing a revelation (Sec. 
19, " Doctrine and Covenants"), saying, "I command thee that 
thou shait not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to the 
printing of the Book of Mormon." Harris accordingly disposed 
of his share of the farm and paid Grandin. 

To make the book "go," Smith now received a revelation 
which permitted his father, soon to be elevated to the title of Patri- 
arch, to sell it on commission, and Smith, Sr., made expeditions 
through the country, taking in pay for any copies sold such farm 
produce or " store goods " as he could use in his own family. 
How much he "cut" the revealed price of the book in these 
trades is not known, but in one instance, when arrested in Palmyra 
for a debt of $5.63, he, under pledge of secrecy, offered seven of 
the Bibles in settlement, and the creditor, knowing that the old 
man had no better assets, accepted the offer as a joke. 2 

1 Mr. Chandler moved to Michigan in 1835, anc ^ ^ as Deen connected with several 
newspapers in that state, editing the Kalamazoo Gazette, and founding and publishing 
the Coldwater Sentinel. He was elected the first mayor of Coldwater, serving several 
terms. He was in his eighty-fifth year when the above letter was written. 

2 " Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," Tucker, p. 63. 

E 



CHAPTER VII 



THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT 

The history of the Mormon Bible has been brought uninter- 
ruptedly to this point in order that the reader may be able to 
follow clearly each step that had led up to its publication. It is 
now necessary to give attention to two subjects intimately con- 
nected with the origin of this book, viz., the use made of what is 
known as the " Spaulding manuscript," in supplying the historical 
part of the work, and Sidney Rigdon's share in its production. 

The most careful student of the career of Joseph Smith, Jr., 
and of his family and his associates, up to the year 1827, will fail 
to find any ground for the belief that he alone, or simply with 
their assistance, was capable of composing the Book of Mormon, 
crude in every sense as that work is. We must therefore accept, 
as do the Mormons, the statement that the text was divinely 
revealed to Smith, or must look for some directing hand behind 
the scene, which supplied the historical part and applied the theo- 
logical. The " Spaulding manuscript " is believed to have fur- 
nished the basis of the historical part of the work. 

Solomon Spaulding, born in Ashford, Connecticut, in 1761, was 
graduated from Dartmouth College in 1785, studied divinity, and 
for some years had charge of a church. His own family described 
him as a peculiar man, given to historical researches, and evi- 
dently of rather unstable disposition. He gave up preaching, 
conducted an academy at Cherry Valley, New York, and later 
moved to Conneaut, Ohio, where in 18 12 he had an interest in an 
iron foundry. His attention was there attracted to the ancient 
mounds in that vicinity, and he set some of his men to work 
exploring one of them. " I vividly remember how excited he be- 
came," says his daughter, " when he heard that they had exhumed 
some human bones, portions of gigantic skeletons, and various 

50 



THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT 



51 



relics." From these discoveries he got the idea of writing a fanci- 
ful history of the ancient races of this country. 

The title he chose for his book was " The Manuscript Found." 
He considered this work a great literary production, counted on 
being able to pay his debts from the proceeds of its sale, and was 
accustomed to read selections from the manuscript to his neigh- 
bors with evident pride. The impression that such a production 
would be likely to make on the author's neighbors in that frontier 
region and in those early days, when books were scarce and authors 
almost unknown, can with difficulty be realized now. Barrett 
Wendell, speaking of the days of Bryant's early work, says : 
" Ours was a new country . . . deeply and sensitively aware that 
it lacked a literature. Whoever produced writings which could be 
pronounced adorable was accordingly regarded by his fellow citi- 
zens as a public benefactor, a great public figure, a personage of 
whom the nation could be proud." 1 This feeling lends weight to 
the testimony of Mr. Spaulding's neighbors, who in later years 
gave outlines of his work. 

In order to find a publisher Mr. Spaulding moved with his 
family to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. A printer named Patterson 
spoke well of the manuscript to its author, but no one was found 
willing to publish it. The Spauldings afterward moved to 
Amity, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Spaulding died in 18 16. His 
widow and only child went to live with Mrs. Spaulding's brother, 
W. H. Sabine, at Onondaga Valley, New York, taking their effects 
with them. These included an old trunk containing Mr. Spaul- 
ding's papers. "There were sermons and other papers," says his 
daughter, " and I saw a manuscript about an inch thick, closely 
written, tied up with some stories my father had written for me, 
one of which he called ' The Frogs of Windham.' On the outside 
of this manuscript were written the words ' Manuscript Found.' 
I did not read it, but looked through it, and had it in my hands 
many times, and saw the names I had heard at Conneaut, when 
my father read it to his friends." Mrs. Spaulding next went to 
her father's house in Connecticut, leaving her personal property 
at her brother's. She married a Mr. Davison in 1820, and the 
old trunk was sent to her at her new home in Hartwick, Otsego 
County, New York. The daughter was married to a Mr. McKins- 

1 " Literary History of America." 



i 



52 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



try in 1828, and her mother afterward made her home with her at 
Monson, Massachusetts, most of the time until her death in 1844. 

When the newly announced Mormon Bible began to be talked 
about in Ohio, there were immediate declarations in Spaulding's 
old neighborhood of a striking similarity between the Bible story 
and the story that Spaulding used to read to his acquaintances 
there, and these became positive assertions after the Mormons had 
held a meeting at Conneaut. The opinion was confidently ex- 
pressed there that, if the manuscript could be found and published, 
it would put an end to the Mormon pretence. 

About the year 1834 Mrs. Davison received a visit at Monson 
from D. P. Hurlbut, a man who had gone over to the Mormons 
from the Methodist church, and had apostatized and been ex- 
pelled. He represented that he had been sent by a committee to 
secure "The Manuscript Found" in order that it might be com- 
pared with the Mormon Bible. As he brought a letter from her 
brother, Mrs. Davison, with considerable reluctance, gave him an 
introduction to George Clark, in whose house at Hartwick she had 
left the old trunk, directing Mr. Clark to let Hurlbut have the 
manuscript, receiving his verbal pledge to return it. He obtained 
a manuscript from this trunk, but did not keep his pledge. 1 

The Boston Recorder published in May, 1839, a detailed state- 
ment by Mrs. Davison concerning her knowledge of "The Manu- 
script Found." After giving an account of the writing of the 
story, her statement continued as follows : — 

" Here [in Pittsburg] Mr. Spaulding found a friend and acquaintance in the 
person of Mr. Patterson, who was very much pleased with it, and borrowed it for 
perusal. He retained it for a long time, and informed Mr. Spaulding that, if he 
would make out a title-page and preface, he would publish it, as it might be a 
source of profit. This Mr. Spaulding refused to do. Sidney Rigdon, who has 
figured so largely in the history of the Mormons, was at that time connected 
with the printing office of Mr. Patterson, as is well known in that region, and, as 
Rigdon himself has frequently stated, became acquainted with Mr. Spaulding^ 
manuscript and copied it. It was a matter of notoriety and interest to all con- 
nected with the printing establishment. At length the manuscript was returned 
to its author, and soon after we removed to Amity where Mr. Spaulding de- 
ceased in 1 8 16. The manuscript then fell into my hands, and was carefully 
preserved." 

1 Condensed from an affidavit by Mrs. McKinstry, dated April 3, 1880, in Scribner's 
Magazine for August, 1880. 



THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT 



53 



This statement stirred up the Mormons greatly, and they at 
once pronounced the letter a forgery, securing from Mrs. Davison 
a statement in which she said that she did not write it. This was 
met with a counter statement by the Rev. D. R. Austin that it 
was made up from notes of a conversation with her, and was cor- 
rect. In confirmation of this the Quincy [Massachusetts] Whig 
printed a letter from John Haven of Holliston, Massachusetts, giv- 
ing a report of a conversation between his son Jesse and Mrs. 
Davison concerning this letter, in which she stated that the letter 
was substantially correct, and that some of the names used in the 
Mormon Bible were like those in her husband's story. Rigdon 
himself, in a letter addressed to the Boston Journal, under date of 
May 27, 1839, denied all knowledge of Spaulding, and declared 
that there was no printer named Patterson in Pittsburg during his 
residence there, although he knew a Robert Patterson who had 
owned a printing-office in that city. The larger part of his letter 
is a coarse attack on Hurlbut and also on E. D. Howe, the author 
of " Mormonism Unveiled," whose whole family he charged with 
" scandalous immoralities." If the use of Spaulding's story in the 
preparation of the Mormon Bible could be proved by nothing but 
this letter of Mrs. Davison, the demonstration would be weak ; 
but this is only one link in the chain. 

Howe, in his painstaking efforts to obtain all probable informa- 
tion about the Mormon origin from original sources, secured the 
affidavits of eight of Spaulding's acquaintances in Ohio, giving their 
recollections of the "Manuscript Found." 1 Spaulding's brother 
John testified that he heard many passages of the manuscript read 
and, describing it, he said : — 

u It was an historical romance of the first settlers of America, endeavoring to 
show that the American Indians are the descendants of the Jews, or the lost tribe. 
It gave a detailed account of their journey from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till 
they arrived in America, under the command of Nephi and Lehi. They after- 
wards had quarrels and contentions, and separated into two distinct nations, one 
of which he denominated Nephites. and the other Lamanites. Cruel and bloody 
wars ensued, in which great multitudes were slain. ... I have recently read the 
* Book of Mormon,' and to my great surprise I find nearly the same historical mat- 
ter, names, etc.. as they were in my brother's writings. I well remember that he 
wrote in the old style, and commenced about every sentence with 1 and it came 
to pass," or 1 now it came to pass,' the same as in the ' Book of Mormon, 1 and, ac- 

1 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 27S-287. 



54 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



cording to the best of my recollection and belief, it is the same as my brother 
Solomon wrote, with the exception of the religious matter." 

John Spaulding's wife testified that she had no doubt that the 
historical part of the Bible and the manuscript were the same, and 
she well recalled such phrases as " it came to pass." 

Mr. Spaulding's business partner at Conneaut, Henry Lake, tes- 
tified that Spaulding read the manuscript to him many hours, that 
the story running through it and the Bible was the same, and he 
recalls this circumstance : " One time, when he was reading to me 
the tragic account of Laban, I pointed out to him what I considered 
an inconsistency, which he promised to correct, but by referring to 
the ' Book of Mormon,' I find that it stands there just as he read 
it to me then. ... I well recollect telling Mr. Spaulding that the 
so frequent use of the words ' and it came to pass,' ' now it came to 
pass,' rendered it ridiculous." 

John N. Miller, an employee of Spaulding in Ohio, and a 
boarder in his family for several months, testified that Spaulding 
had written more than one book or pamphlet, that he had heard 
the author read from the " Manuscript Found," that he recalled 
the story running through it, and added : " I have recently exam- 
ined the ' Book of Mormon,' and find in it the writings of Solomon 
Spaulding, from beginning to end, but mixed up with Scripture 
and other religious matter which I did not meet with in the ' Man- 
uscript Found.' . . . The names of Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, and in 
fact all the principal names, are brought fresh to my recollection 
by the ' Gold Bible.' " 

Practically identical testimony was given by the four other 
neighbors. Important additions to this testimony have been made 
in later years. A statement by Joseph Miller of Amity, Pennsyl- 
vania, a man of standing in that community, was published in the 
Pittsburg^Telegraph of February 6, 1879. Mr. Miller said that 
he was well acquainted with Spaulding when he lived at Amity, 
and heard him read most of the " Manuscript Found," and had 
read the Mormon Bible in late years to compare the two. " On 
hearing read," he says, "the account from the book of the battle 
between the Amlicites (Book of Alma), in which the soldiers of 
one army had placed a red mark on their foreheads to distinguish 
them from their enemies, it seemed to reproduce in my mind, not 
only the narration, but the very words as they had been impressed 



THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT 



55 



on my mind by the reading of Spaulding's manuscript. . . . The 
longer I live, the more firmly I am convinced that Spaulding's man- 
uscript was appropriated and largely used in getting up the ' Book 
of Mormon.' " 

Redick McKee, a resident of Amity, Pennsylvania, when Spaul- 
ding lived there, and later a resident of Washington, D. C, in a 
letter to the Washington [Pennsylvania] Reporter, of April 21, 
1869, stated that he heard Spaulding read from his manuscript, 
and added : " I have an indistinct recollection of the passage re- 
ferred to by Mr. Miller about the Amlicites making a cross with 
red paint on their foreheads to distinguish them from enemies in 
battle." 

The Rev. Abner Judson, of Canton, Ohio, wrote for the Wash- 
ington County, Pennsylvania, Historical Society, under date of 
December 20, 1880, an account of his recollections of the Spaul- 
ding manuscript, and it was printed in the Washington [Pennsyl- 
vania] Reporter of January 7, 1881. Spaulding read a large part 
of his manuscript to Mr. Judson's father before the author moved 
to Pittsburg, and the son, confined to the house with a lameness, 
heard the reading and the accompanying conversations. He 
says : — 

" He wrote it in the Bible style. £ And it came to pass, 1 occurred so often 
that some called him ' Old Come-to-pass. ' The * Book of Mormons ' follows the 
romance too closely to be a stranger. . . . When it was brought to Conneaut 
and read there in public, old Esquire Wright heard it and exclaimed, ' " Old Come- 
to-pass " has come to life again.' " 1 

The testimony of so many witnesses, so specific in its details, 
seems to prove the identity of Spaulding's story and the story run- 
ning through the Mormon Bible. The late President James H. 
Fairchild of Oberlin, Ohio, whose pamphlet on the subject we 
shall next examine, admits that " if we could accept without mis- 
giving the testimony of the eight witnesses brought forward in 
Howe's book, we should be obliged to accept the fact of another 
manuscript " (than the one which President Fairchild secured) ; 
but he thinks there is some doubt about the effect on the memory 
of these witnesses of the lapse of years and the reading of the new 

1 Fuller extracts from the testimony of these later witnesses will be found in Robert 
Patterson's pamphlet, " Who wrote the Book of Mormon," reprinted from the " History 
of Washington County, Pa." 



56 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Bible before they recalled the original story. It must be remem- 
bered, however, that this resemblance was recalled as soon as they 
heard the story of the new Bible, and there seems no ground on 
which to trace a theory that it was the Bible which originated in 
their minds the story ascribed to the manuscript. 

The defenders of the Mormon Bible as an original work received 
great comfort some fifteen years ago by the announcement that 
the original manuscript of Spaulding's " Manuscript Found " had 
been discovered in the Sandwich Islands and brought to this coun- 
try, and that its narrative bore no resemblance to the Bible story. 
The history of this second manuscript is as follows : E. D. Howe 
sold his printing establishment at Painesville, Ohio, to L. L. Rice, 
who was an antislavery editor there for many years. Mr. Rice 
afterward moved to the Sandwich Islands, and there he was re- 
quested by President Fairchild to look over his old papers to see 
if he could not find some antislavery matter that would be of 
value to the Oberlin College library. One result of his search 
was an old manuscript bearing the following certificate : — 

" The writings of Solomon Spaulding, proved by Aaron Wright, Oliver Smith, 
John N. Miller and others. The testimonies of the above gentlemen are now in 
my possession. 

"D. P. Hurlbut." 

President Fairchild in a paper on this subject which has been 
published 1 gives a description of this manuscript (it has been 
printed by the Reorganized Church at Lamoni, Iowa), which 
shows that it bears no resemblance to the Bible story. But the 
assumption that this proves that the Bible story is original 
fails immediately in view of the fact that Mr. Howe made no 
concealment of his possession of this second manuscript. Hurl- 
but was in Howe's service when he asked Mrs. Davison for an 
order for the manuscript, and he gave to Howe, as the result of 
his visit, the manuscript which Rice gave to President Fairchild. 
Howe in his book (p. 288) describes this manuscript substan- 
tially as does President Fairchild, saying : — 

" This is a romance, purporting to have been translated from the Latin, found 
on twenty-four rolls of parchment in a cave on the banks of Conneaut Creek, but 
written in a modern style, and giving a fabulous account of a ship's being driven 

1 "Manuscript of Solomon Spaulding and the 'Book of Mormon,'" Tract No. 77, 
Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio. 



THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT 



57 



upon the American coast, while proceeding from Rome to Britain, a short time 
previous to the Christian era, this country then being inhabited by the Indians. 11 1 

Mr. Howe adds this important statement : — 

" This old manuscript has been shown to several of the foregoing witnesses, 
who recognize it as Spaulding's, he having told them that he had altered his first 
plan of writing, by going further back with dates, and writing in the old scripture 
style, in order that it might appear more ancient. They say that it bears no re- 
semblance to the 1 Manuscript Found. 111 

If Howe had considered this manuscript of the least impor- 
tance as invalidating the testimony showing the resemblance be- 
tween the " Manuscript Found " and the Mormon Bible, he would 
have destroyed it (if he was the malignant falsifier the Mormons 
represented him to be), and not have first described it in his book, 
and then left it to be found by any future owner of his effects. Its 
rediscovery has been accepted, however, even by some non-Mor- 
mons, as proof that the Mormon Bible is an original production. 2 

Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, a great-niece of Spaulding, who has 
painstakingly investigated the history of the much-discussed man- 
uscript, visited D. P. Hurlbut at his home near Gibsonburg, Ohio, 
in 1880 (he died in 1882), taking with her Oscar Kellogg, a lawyer, 
as a witness to the interview. 3 She says that her visit excited him 
greatly. He told of getting a manuscript for Mr. Howe at Hart- 
wick, and said he thought it was burned with other of Mr. Howe's 
papers. When asked, " Was it Spaulding's manuscript that was 
burned ? " he replied : " Mrs. Davison thought it was ; but when 
I just peeked into it, here and there, and saw the names Mormon, 
Moroni, Lamanite, Lephi, I thought it was all nonsense. Why, if 
it had been the real one, I could have sold it for $3000 ; 4 but I just 
gave it to Howe because it was of no account." During the inter- 
view his wife was present, and when Mrs. Dickenson pressed him 

1 Howe says in his book, "The fact that Spaulding in the latter part of his life 
inclined to infidelity is established by a letter in his handwriting now in our possession." 
This letter was given by Rice with the other manuscript to President Fairchild (who 
reproduces it), thus adding to the proof that the Rice manuscript is the one Hurlbut 
delivered to Howe. 

2 Preface to " The Mormon Prophet," Lily Dugall. 

3 A full account of this interview is given in her book, " New Light on Mormonism " 
(1885). 

4 There have been surmises that Hurlbut also found the " Manuscript Found " in 
the trunk and sold this to the Mormons. He sent a specific denial of this charge to 
Robert Patterson in 1879. 



58 THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 

with the question, " Do you know where the ' Manuscript Found ' 
is at the present time ? " Mrs. Hurlbut went up to him and said, 
"Tell her what you know." She got no satisfactory answer, but 
he afterward forwarded to her an affidavit saying that he had 
obtained of Mrs. Davison a manuscript supposing it to be Spaul- 
ding's " Manuscript Found," adding : " I did not examine the man- 
uscript until after I got home, when upon examination I found it 
to contain nothing of the kind, but being a manuscript upon an 
entirely different subject. This manuscript I left with E. D. 
Howe." 

With this presentation of the evidence showing the similarity 
between Spaulding's story and the Mormon Bible narrative, we 
may next examine the grounds for believing that Sidney Rigdon 
was connected with the production of the Bible. 



CHAPTER VIII 
SIDNEY RIGDON 

The man who had more to do with founding the Mormon church 
than Joseph Smith, Jr., even if we exclude any share in the pro- 
duction of the Mormon Bible, and yet who is unknown even by 
name to most persons to whom the names of Joseph Smith and 
Brigham Young are familiar, was Sidney Rigdon. Elder John 
Hyde, Jr., was well within the truth when he wrote : " The com- 
piling genius of Mormonism was Sidney Rigdon. Smith had 
boisterous impetuosity but no foresight. Polygamy was not the 
result of his policy but of his passions. Sidney gave point, direc- 
tion, and apparent consistency to the Mormon system of theology. 
He invented its forms and the manner of its arguments. . . . 
Had it not been for the accession of these two men [Rigdon and 
Parley P. Pratt] Smith would have been lost, and his schemes 
frustrated and abandoned." 1 

Rigdon (according to the sketch of him presented in Smith's 
autobiography, 2 which he doubtless wrote) was born in St. Clair 
township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on February 19, 1793. 
His father was a farmer, and he lived on the farm, receiving only 
a limited education, until he was twenty-six years old. He then 
connected himself with the Baptist church, and received a license 
to preach. Selecting Ohio as his field, he continued his work in 
rural districts in that state until 182 1, when he accepted a call 
to a small Baptist church in Pittsburg. 

Twenty years before the publication of the Mormon Bible, 
Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Scotchmen, had founded a 

1 "Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs" (1857). Hyde, an Englishman, joined 
the Mormons in that country when a lad and began to preach almost at once. He sailed 
for this country in 1853 and joined the brethren in Salt Lake City. Brigham Young's 
rule upset his faith, and he abandoned the belief in 1854. Even H. H. Bancroft con- 
cedes him to have been " an able and honest man, sober and sincere." 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt. 

59 



6o 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



congregation in Washington County, Pennsylvania, out of which 
grew the religious denomination known as Disciples of Christ, or 
Campbellites, whose communicants in the United States numbered 
871,017 in the year 1890. The fundamental principle of their 
teaching was that every doctrine of belief, or maxim of duty, must 
rest upon the authority of Scripture, expressed or implied, all 
human creeds being rejected. The Campbells (who had been 
first Presbyterians and then Baptists) were wonderful orators and 
convincing debaters out of the pulpit, and they drew to themselves 
many of the most eloquent exhorters in what was then the western 
border of the United States. Among their allies was another 
Scotchman, Walter Scott, a musician and school-teacher by profes- 
sion, who assisted them in their newspaper work and became a 
noted evangelist in their denomination. During a visit to Pitts- 
burgrdn 1823, Scott made Rigdon's acquaintance, and a little later 
the flocks to which each preached were united. In August, 1824, 
Rigdon announced his withdrawal from his church. Regarding 
his withdrawal the sketch in Smith's autobiography says : — 

"After he had been in that place [Pittsburg] some time, his mind was 
troubled and much perplexed with the idea that the doctrines maintained by that 
society were not altogether in accordance with the Scriptures. This thing contin- 
ued to agitate his mind more and more, and his reflections on these occasions 
were particularly trying ; for, according to his view of the word of God, no other 
church with whom he could associate, or that he was acquainted with, was right ; 
consequently, if he was to disavow the doctrine of the church with whom he 
was then associated, he knew of no other way of obtaining a living, except by 
manual labor, and at that time he had a wife and three children to support." 

For two years after he gave up his church connection he 
worked as a journeyman tanner. This is all the information ob- 
tainable about this part of his life. We next find him preaching 
at Bainbridge, Ohio, as an undenominational exhorter, but follow- 
ing the general views of the Campbells, advising his hearers to 
reject their creeds and rest their belief solely on the Bible. 

In June, 1826, Rigdon received a call to a Baptist church at 
Mentor, Ohio, whose congregation he had pleased when he preached 
the funeral sermon of his predecessor. His labors were not con- 
fined, however, to this congregation. We find him acting as the 
"stated" minister of a Disciples' church organized at Mantua, 
Ohio, in 1827, preaching with Thomas Campbell at Shalersville, 



SIDNEY RIGDON 



6l 



Ohio, in 1828, and thus extending the influence he had acquired as 
early as 1820, when Alexander Campbell called him "the great 
orator of the Mahoning Association." In 1828 he visited his old 
associate Scott, was further confirmed in his faith in the Disciples' 
belief, and, taking his brother-in-law Bentley back with him, they 
began revival work at Mentor, which led to the conversion of more 
than fifty of their hearers. They held services at Kirtland, Ohio, 
with equal success, and the story of this awakening was the main 
subject of discussion in all the neighborhood round about. The 
sketch of Rigdon in Smith's autobiography closes with this tribute 
to his power as a preacher: "The churches where he preached 
were no longer large enough to contain the vast assemblies. No 
longer did he follow the old beaten track, . . . but dared to enter 
on new grounds, . . . threw new light on the sacred volume, . . . 
proved to a demonstration the literal fulfilment of prophecy . . . 
and the reign of Christ with his Saints on the earth in the Mil- 
lennium." 

In tracing Rigdon's connection with Smith's enterprise, atten- 
tion must be carefully paid both to Rigdon's personal character- 
istics, and to the resemblance between the doctrines he had taught 
in the pulpit and those that appear in the Mormon Bible. 

Rigdon's mental and religious temperament was just of the 
character to be attracted by a novelty in religious belief. He, 
with his brother-in-law, Adamson Bentley, visited Alexander Camp- 
bell in 1 82 1, and spent a whole night in religious discussion. 
When they parted the next day, Rigdon declared that " if he had 
within the last year promulgated one error, he had a thousand," 
and Mr. Campbell, in his account of the interview, remarked, " I 
found it expedient to caution them not to begin to pull down any- 
thing they had builded until they had reviewed, again and again, 
what they had heard; not even then rashly and without much 
consideration." 1 

A leading member of the church at Mantua has written, " Sid- 
ney Rigdon preached for us, and, notwithstanding his extrava- 
gantly wild freaks, he was held in high repute by many." 2 

An important church discussion occurred at Warren, Ohio, in 

1 Millennial Harbinger, 1848, p. 523. 

2 " Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western Reserve," by A. S. Hay- 
den (1876), p. 239. 



62 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



1828. Following out the idea of the literal interpretation of the 
Scriptures taught in the Disciples' church, Rigdon sprung on the 
meeting an argument in favor of a community of goods, holding 
that the apostles established this system at Jerusalem, and that the 
modern church, which rested on their example, must follow them. 
Alexander Campbell, who was present, at once controverted this 
position, showing that the apostles, as narrated in Acts, " sold their 
possessions" instead of combining them for a profit, and citing 
Bible texts to prove that no " community system " existed in the 
early church. This argument carried the meeting, and Rigdon 
left the assemblage, embittered against Campbell beyond forgive- 
ness. To a brother in Warren, on his way home, he declared, " I 
have done as much in this reformation as Campbell or Scott, and 
yet they get all the honor of it." This claim is set forth specifi- 
cally in the sketch of Rigdon in Smith's autobiography. Referring 
to Rigdon and Alexander Campbell, this statement is there made : — 

" After they had separated from the different churches, these gentlemen were 
on terms of the greatest friendship, and frequently met together to discuss the 
subject of religion, being yet undetermined respecting the principles of the doc- 
trine of Christ or what course to pursue. However, from this connection sprung 
up a new church in the world, known by the name of ' Campbellites 1 ; they call 
themselves 1 Disciples.' The reason why they were called Campbellites was in 
consequence of Mr. Campbell's periodical, above mentioned [the Christian Baft- 
tist] y and it being the means through which they communicated their sentiments 
to the world ; other than this, Mr. Campbell was no more the originator of the 
sect than Elder Rigdon." 

Rigdon's bitterness against the Campbells and his old church 
more than once manifested itself in his later writings. For in- 
stance, in an article in the Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland), of 
June, 1837, he said: "One thing has been done by the coming 
forth of the Book of Mormon. It has puked the Campbellites 
effectually ; no emetic could have done so half as well. . . . The 
Book of Mormon has revealed the secrets of Campbellism and un- 
folded the end of the system." In this jealousy of the Campbells, 
and the discomfiture as a leader which he received at their hands, 
we find a sufficient object for Rigdon's desertion of his old church 
associations and desire to build up something, the discovery of 
which he could claim, and the government of which he could 
control. 

To understand the strength of the argument that the doctrinal 



SIDNEY RIGDON 



63 



teachings of the Mormon Bible were the work of a Disciples' 
preacher rather than of the ne'er-do-well Smith, it is only neces- 
sary to examine the teachings of the Disciples' church in Ohio at 
that time. The investigator will be startled by the resemblance 
between what was then taught to and believed by Disciples' con- 
gregations and the leading beliefs of the Mormon Bible. In the 
following examples of this the illustrations of Disciples' beliefs and 
teachings are taken from Hayden's " Early History of the Disci- 
ples' Church in the Western Reserve." 

The literal interpretation of the Scriptures, on which the Mor- 
mon defenders of their faith so largely depend, — as for explana- 
tions of modern revelations, miracles, and signs, — was preached 
to so extreme a point by Ohio Disciples that Alexander Campbell 
had to combat them in his Millennial Harbinger. An outcome of 
this literal interpretation was a belief in a speedy millennium, 
another fundamental belief of the early Mormon church. " The 
hope of the millennial glory," says Hayden, " was based on many 
passages of the Holy Scriptures. . . . Millennial hymns were 
learned and sung with a joyful fervor. ... It is surprising even 
now, as memory returns to gather up these interesting remains of 
that mighty work, to recall the thorough and extensive knowledge 
which the convert quickly obtained. Nebuchadnezzar's vision . . . 
many portions of the Revelation were so thoroughly studied that 
they became the staple of the common talk." Rigdon's old Pitts- 
burg friend, Scott, in his report as evangelist to the church asso- 
ciation at Warren in 1828, said: " Individuals eminently skilled in 
the word of God, the history of the world, and the progress of 
human improvements see reasons to expect great changes, much 
greater than have yet occurred, and which shall give to political 
society and to the church a different, a very different, complexion 
from what many anticipate. The millennium — the millennium 
described in the Scriptures — will doubtless be a wonder, a ter- 
rible wonder, to all." 

Disciples' preachers understood that they spoke directly for 
God, just as Smith assumed to do in his "revelations." Referring 
to the preaching of Rigdon and Bentley, after a visit to Scott in 
March, 1828, Hayden says, "They spoke with authority, for the 
word which they delivered was not theirs, but that of Jesus Christ." 
The Disciples, like the Mormons, at that time looked for the return 



6 4 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



of the Jews to Jerusalem. Scott 1 was an enthusiastic preacher of 
this. "The fourteenth chapter of Zechariah," says Hayden, "was 
brought forward in proof — all considered as literal — that the 
most marvellous and stupendous physical and climatic changes 
were to be wrought in Palestine ; and that Jesus Christ the Mes- 
siah was to reign literally in Jerusalem, and in Mount Zion, and 
before his ancients, gloriously." 

Campbell taught that "creeds are but statements, with few 
exceptions, of doctrinal opinion or speculators' views of philo- 
sophical or dogmatic subjects, and tended to confusion, disunion, 
and weakness." Orson Pratt, in his " Divine Authenticity of the 
Book of Mormon," thus stated the early Mormon view on the 
same subject: "If any man or council, without the aid of imme- 
diate revelation, shall undertake to decide upon such subjects, and 
prescribe ' articles of faith ' or ' creeds ' to govern the belief or 
views of others, there will be thousands of well-meaning people 
who will not have confidence in the productions of these fallible 
men, and, therefore, frame creeds of their own. ... In this way 
contentions arise." 

Finally, attention may be directed to the emphatic declarations 
of the Disciples' doctrine of baptism in the Mormon Bible : — 

" Ye shall go down and stand in the water, and in my name shall ye baptize 
them . . . And then shall ye immerse them in the water, and come forth again 
out of the water." — 3 Nephi xi. 23, 26. 

" I know that it is solemn mockery before God that ye should baptize little 
children. . . . He that supposeth that little children need baptism is in the gall 
of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity ; for he hath neither faith, hope, nor 
charity ; wherefore, should he be cut off while in the thought, he must go down 
to hell. For awful is the wickedness to suppose that God saveth one child 
because of baptism, and the other must perish because he hath no baptism." 

— Moroni viii. 9, 14, 15. 

There are but three conclusions possible from all this : that 
the Mormon Bible was a work of inspiration, and that the agree- 

1 " In a letter to Dr. Richardson, written in 1830, he [Scott] says the book of Elias 
Smith on the prophecies is the only sensible work on that subject he had seen. He 
thinks this and Crowley on the Apocalypse all the student of the Bible wants. He 
strongly commends Smith's book to the doctor. This seems to be the origin of millen- 
nial views among us. Rigdon, who always caught and proclaimed the last word that 
fell from the lips of Scott or Campbell, seized these views (about the millennium and 
the Jews) and, with the wildness of his extravagant nature, heralded them everywhere." 

— " Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western Reserve," p. 186. 



SIDNEY RIGDON 



65 



ment of its doctrines with Disciples' belief only proves the correct- 
ness of the latter ; that Smith, in writing his doctrinal views, hit 
on the Disciples' tenets by chance (he had had no opportunity 
whatever to study them); or, finally, that some Disciple, learned 
in the church, supplied these doctrines to him. 

Advancing another step in the examination of Rigdon's con- 
nection with the scheme, we find that even the idea of a new 
Bible was common belief among the Ohio Disciples who listened 
to Scott's teaching. Describing Scott's preaching in the winter 
of 1827-1828, Hayden says: — 

" He contended ably for the restoration of the true, original apostolic order 
which would restore to the church the ancient gospel as preached by the apostles. 
The interest became an excitement ; . . . the air was thick with rumors of a ' new 
religion,' a 'new Bible. 11 ' 

Next we may cite two witnesses to show that Rigdon had a 
knowledge of Smith's Bible in advance of its publication. His 
brother-in-law, Bentley, in a letter to Walter Scott dated January 
22, 1841, said, "I know that Sidney Rigdon told me there was 
a book coming out, the manuscript of which had been found 
engraved on gold plates, as much as two years before the 
Mormon book made its appearance or had been heard of by 
me." 1 

One of the elders of the Disciples' church was Darwin 
Atwater, a farmer, who afterward occupied the pulpit, and of 
whom Hayden says, " The uniformity of his life, his undeviating 
devotion, his high and consistent manliness and superiority of 
judgment, gave him an undisputed preeminence in the church." 
In a letter to Hayden, dated April 26, 1873, Mr. Atwater said of 
Rigdon : — 

" For a few months before his professed conversion to Mormonism it was 
noticed that his wild extravagant propensities had been more marked. That he 
knew before the coming of the Book of Mormon is to me certain from what he 
said during the first of his visits at my father's, some years before. He gave a 
wonderful description of the mounds and other antiquities found in some parts 
of America, and said that they must have been made by the aborigines. He 
said there was a book to be published containing an account of those things. 
He spoke of these in his eloquent, enthusiastic style, as being a thing most 

1 Millennial Harbinger, 1844, p. 39. The Rev. Alexander Campbell testified that 
this conversation took place in his presence. 

F 



66 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



extraordinary. Though a youth then, I took him to task for expending so much 
enthusiasm on such a subject instead of things of the Gospel. In all my inter- 
course with him afterward he never spoke of antiquities, or of the wonderful 
book that should give account of them, till the Book of Mormon really was 
published. He must have thought I was not the man to reveal that to." 1 

Dr. Storm Rosa, a leading physician of Ohio, in a letter to 
the Rev. John Hall of Ashtabula, written in 1841, said: "In the 
early part of the year 1830 I was in company with Sidney Rigdon, 
and rode with him on horseback for a few miles. . . . He 
remarked to me that it was time for a new religion to spring up ; 
that mankind were all right and ready for it." 2 

Having thus established the identity of the story running 
through the Spaulding manuscript and the historical part of the 
Mormon Bible, the agreement of the doctrinal part of the latter 
with what was taught at the time by Rigdon and his fellow-workers 
in Ohio, and Rigdon's previous knowledge of the coming book, 
we are brought to the query, How did the Spaulding manuscript 
become incorporated in the Mormon Bible ? 

It could have been so incorporated in two ways : either by com- 
ing into the possession of Rigdon and being by him copied and 
placed in Smith's hands for " translation," with the theological 
parts added ; 3 or by coming into possession of Smith in his wan- 
derings around the neighborhood of Hartwick, and being shown 
by him to Rigdon. Every aspect of this matter has been dis- 
cussed by Mormon and non-Mormon writers, and it can only be 
said that definite proof is lacking. Mormon disputants set forth 
that Spaulding moved from Pittsburgr.to Amity in 18 14, and that 
Rigdon's first visit to PittsburgV,occurred in 1822. On the other 
hand, evidence is offered that Rigdon was a " hanger around " 
Patterson's printing-office, where Spaulding offered his manuscript, 
before the year 18 16, and the Rev. John Winter, M.D., who taught 
school in Pittsburg! when Rigdon preached there, and knew him 
well, recalled that Rigdon showed him a large manuscript which 

1 " Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western Reserve," p. 239. 

2 "Gleanings by the Way," p. 315. 

3 " Rigdon has not been in full fellowship with Smith for more than a year. He 
has been in his turn cast aside by Joe to make room for some new dupe or knave who, 
perhaps, has come with more money. He has never been deceived by Joe. I have no 
doubt that Rigdon was the originator of the system, and, fearing for its success, put Joe 
forward as a sort of fool in the play." — Letter from a resident near Nauvoo, quoted in 
the postscript to Caswall's "City of the Mormons" (1843). 



SIDNEY RIGDON 



6/ 



he said a Presbyterian minister named Spaulding had brought to 
the city for publication. Dr. Winter's daughter wrote to Robert 
Patterson on April 5, 1881 : "I have frequently heard my father 
speak of Rigdon having Spaulding's manuscript, and that he had 
gotten it from the printers to read it as a curiosity ; as such he 
showed it to father, and at that time Rigdon had no intention of 
making the use of it that he afterward did." 1 Mrs. Ellen E. 
Dickenson, in a report of a talk with General and Mrs. Garfield 
on the subject at Mentor, Ohio, in 1880, reports Mrs. Garfield as 
saying " that her father told her that Rigdon in his youth lived 
in that neighborhood, and made mysterious journeys to Pitts- 
burg." 2 She also quotes a statement by Mrs. Garfield's father, 
Z. Rudolph, " that during the winter previous to the appearance 
of the Book of Mormon, Rigdon was in the habit of spending 
weeks away from his home, going no one knew where." 3 Tucker 
says that in the summer of 1827 " a mysterious stranger appears 
at Smith's residence, and holds private interviews with the far- 
famed money-digger. ... It was observed by some of Smith's 
nearest neighbors that his visits were frequently repeated." Again, 
when the persons interested in the publication of the Bible were 
so alarmed by the abstraction of pages of the translation by 
Mrs. Harris, " the reappearance of the mysterious stranger at 
Smith's was," he says, "the subject of inquiry and conjecture by 
observers from whom was withheld all explanation of his identity 
or purpose." 4 

In a historical inquiry of this kind, it is more important to estab- 
lish the fact that a certain thing was done than to prove just how 
or when it was done. The entire narrative of the steps leading 
up to the announcement of a new Bible, including Smith's first 
introduction to the use of a " peek-stone " and his original employ- 
ment of it, the changes made in the original version of the an- 
nouncement to him of buried plates, and the final production of a 
book, partly historical and partly theological, shows that there was 
behind Smith some directing mind, and the only one of his asso- 
ciates in the first few years of the church's history who could have 
done the work required was Sidney Rigdon. 

1 For a collection of evidence on this subject, see Patterson's " Who Wrote the 
Mormon Bible? " 

2 Scribner's Magazine, October, 1881. 3 "New Light on Mormonism," p. 252. 
4 " Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," pp. 28, 46. 



68 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



President Fairchild, in his paper on the Spaulding manuscript 
already referred to, while admitting that " it is perhaps impossible 
at this day to prove or disprove the Spaulding theory," finds an 
argument against the assumption that Rigdon supplied the doctri- 
nal part of the new Bible, in the view that " a man as self-reliant 
and smart as Rigdon, with a superabundant gift of tongue and 
every form of utterance, would never have accepted the servile 
task" of mere interpolation; "there could have been no motive 
to it." This only shows that President Fairchild wrote without 
knowledge of the whole subject, with ignorance of the motives 
which did exist for Rigdon's conduct, and without means of ac- 
quainting himself with Rigdon's history during his association 
with Smith. Some of his motives we have already ascertained. 
We shall find that, almost from the beginning of their removal to 
Ohio, Smith held him in a subjection which can be explained only 
on the theory that Rigdon, the prominent churchman, had placed 
himself completely in the power of the unprincipled Smith, and 
that, instead of exhibiting self-reliance, he accepted insult after 
insult until, just before Smith's death, he was practically without 
influence in the church ; and when the time came to elect Smith's 
successor, he was turned out of doors by Brigham Young with the 
taunting words, " Brother Sidney says he will tell our secrets, but 
I would say, ' O don't, Brother Sidney ! Don't tell our secrets — 
O don't.' But if he tells our secrets we will tell his. Tit for 
tat ! " President Fairchild's argument that " several of the original 
leaders of the fanaticism must have been adequate to the task " of 
supplying the doctrinal part of the book, only furnishes additional 
proof of his ignorance of early Mormon history, and his further 
assumption that " it is difficult — almost impossible — to believe 
that the religious sentiments of the Book of Mormon were wrought 
into interpolation " brings him into direct conflict, as we shall see, 
with Professor Whitsitt, 1 a much better equipped student of the 
subject. 

If it should be questioned whether a man of Rigdon's church 
connection would deliberately plan such a fraudulent scheme as 
the production of the Mormon Bible, the inquiry may be easily 
satisfied. One of the first tasks which Smith and Rigdon under- 
took, as soon as Rigdon openly joined Smith in New York State, 

1 Post, pp. 92, 93- 



SIDNEY RIGDON 



6 9 



was the preparation of what they called a new translation of the 
Scriptures. This work was undertaken in conformity with a " reve- 
lation " to Smith and Rigdon, dated December, 1830 (Sec. 35, 
"Doctrine and Covenants") in which Sidney was told, "And 
a commandment I give unto thee, that thou shalt write for him ; 
and the Scriptures shall be given, even as they are in mine own 
bosom, to the salvation of mine own elect." The "translating" 
was completed in Ohio, and the manuscript, according to Smith, 
"was sealed up, no more to be opened till it arrived in Zion." 1 
This work was at first kept as a great secret, and Smith and Rig- 
don moved to the house of a resident of Hiram township, Portage 
County, Ohio, thirty miles from Kirtland, in September, 183 1, to 
carry it on ; but the secret soon got out. The preface to the 
edition of the book published at Piano, Illinois, in 1867, under 
the title, " The Holy Scriptures translated and corrected by the 
Spirit of Revelation, by Joseph Smith, Jr., the Seer," says that 
the manuscript remained in the hands of the prophet's widow from 
the time of his death until 1866, when it was delivered to a com- 
mittee of the Reorganized Mormon conference for publication. 
Some of its chapters were known to Mormon readers earlier, 
since Corrill gives the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew in his 
historical sketch, which was dated 1839. 

The professed object of the translation was to restore the 
Scriptures to their original purity and beauty, the Mormon Bible 
declaring that " many plain and precious parts " had been taken 
from them. The real object, however, was to add to the sacred 
writings a prediction of Joseph Smith's coming as a prophet, which 
would increase his authority and support the pretensions of the new 
Bible. That this was Rigdon's scheme is apparent from the fact 
that it was announced as soon as he visited Smith, and was carried 
on under his direction, and that the manuscript translation was all 
in his handwriting. 2 

Extended parts of the translation do not differ at all from the 
King James version, and many of the changes are verbal and 
inconsequential. Rigdon's object appears in the changes made 
in the fiftieth chapter of Genesis, and the twenty-ninth chapter of 
Isaiah. In the King James version the fiftieth chapter of Genesis 
contains twenty-six verses, and ends with the words, " So Joseph 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 361. 2 WyFs " Mormon Portraits," p. 124. 



70 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



died, being an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, 
and he was put in a coffin in Eygpt." In the Smith- Rigdon version 
this chapter contains thirty-eight verses, the addition representing 
Joseph as telling his brethren that a branch of his people shall be 
carried into a far country and that a seer shall be given to them, 
" and that seer will I bless, and they that seek to destroy him shall 
be confounded ; for this promise I give unto you ; for I will remem- 
ber you from generation to generation ; and his name shall be called 
Joseph. And he shall have judgment, and shall write the word of 
the Lord." 

The twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah is similarly expanded from 
twenty-four short to thirty-two long verses. Verses eleven and 
twelve of the King James version read: — 

" And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is 
sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee : 
and he saith, I cannot ; for it is sealed : " 

" And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, 
I pray thee : and he saith, I am not learned." 

The Smith- Rigdon version expands this as follows : — 

"ii. And it shall come to pass, that the Lord God shall bring forth unto 
you the words of a book; and they shall be the words of them which have 
slumbered. 

" 12. And behold, the book shall be sealed ; and in the book shall be a reve- 
lation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof. 

" 13. Wherefore, because of the things which are sealed up, the things which 
are sealed shall not be delivered in the day of the wickedness and abominations 
of the people. Wherefore, the book shall be kept from them. 

" 14. But the book shall be delivered unto a man, and he shall deliver the 
words of the book, which are the words of those who have slumbered in the dust ; 
and he shall deliver these words unto another, but the words that are sealed he 
shall not deliver, neither shall he deliver the book. 

"15. For the book shall be sealed by the power of God, and the revelation 
which was sealed shall be kept in the book until the own due time of the Lord, 
that they may come forth ; for, behold, they reveal all things from the foundation 
of the world unto the end thereof." 

No one will question that a Rigdon who would palm off such a 
fraudulent work as this upon the men who looked to him as a reli- 
gious teacher would hesitate to suggest to Smith the scheme for 
a new Bible. During the work of translation, as we learn from 
Smith's autobiography, the translators saw a wonderful vision, in 
which they " beheld the glory of the Son on the right hand of the 



SIDNEY RIGDON 



71 



Father," and holy angels, and the glory of the worlds, terrestrial 
and celestial. Soon after this they received an explanation from 
heaven of some obscure texts in Revelation. Thus, the sea of 
glass (iv. 6) "is the earth in its sanctified, immortal, and eternal 
state"; by the little book which was eaten by John (chapter x) 
" we are to understand that it was a mission and an ordinance for 
him to gather the tribes of Israel." 

It may be added that this translation is discarded by the modern 
Mormon church in Utah. The Deseret Evening News, the church 
organ at Salt Lake City, said on February 21, 1900: — 

" The translation of the Bible, referred to by our correspondents, has not 
been adopted by this church as authoritative. It is understood that the Prophet 
Joseph intended before its publication to subject the manuscript to an entire ex- 
amination, for such revision as might be deemed necessary. Be that as it may, 
the work has not been published under the auspices of this church, and is, there- 
fore, not held out as a guide. For the present, the version of the scriptures com- 
monly known as King James's translation is used, and the living oracles are the 
expounders of the written word. 11 

We may anticipate the course of our narrative in order to show 
how much confirmation of Rigdon's connection with the whole 
Mormon scheme is furnished by the circumstances attending the 
first open announcement of his acceptance of the Mormon litera- 
ture and faith. We are first introduced to Parley P. Pratt, some- 
time tin pedler, and a lay preacher to rural congregations in Ohio 
when occasion offered. Pratt in his autobiography tells of the joy 
with which he heard Rigdon preach, at his home in Ohio, doc- 
trines of repentance and baptism which were the " ancient gospel " 
that he (Pratt) had " discovered years before, but could find no 
one to minister in " ; of a society for worship which he and others 
organized; of his decision, acting under the influence of the 
Gospel and prophecies "as they had been opened to him," to 
abandon the home he had built up, and to set out on a mission 
"for the Gospel's sake" ; and of a trip to New York State, where 
he was shown the Mormon Bible. "As I read," he says, "the 
spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended 
that the book was true." 

Pratt was at once commissioned, " by revelation and the laying 
on of hands," to preach the new Gospel, and was sent, also by 
" revelation " (Sec. 32, " Doctrine and Covenants "), along with 



72 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Cowdery, Z. Peterson, and Peter Whitmer, Jr., " into the wilder- 
ness among the Lamanites." Pratt and Cowdery went direct to 
Rigdon's house in Mentor, where they stayed a week. Pratt's 
own account says : " We called on Mr. Rigdon, my former friend 
and instructor in the Reformed Baptist Society. He received us 
cordially, and entertained us with hospitality." 1 

In Smith's autobiography it is stated that Rigdon's visitors 
presented the Mormon Bible to him as a revelation from God, 
and what followed is thus described : — 

" This being the first time he had ever heard of or seen the Book of Mormon, 
he felt very much prejudiced at the assertion, and replied that 1 he had one Bible 
which he believed was a revelation from God, and with which he pretended to 
have some acquaintance ; but with respect to the book they had presented him, 
he must say he had considerable doubt? Upon which they expressed a desire to 
investigate the subject and argue the matter ; but he replied, 1 No, young gentle- 
men, you must not argue with me on the subject. But I will read your book, and 
see what claim it has upon my faith, and will endeavor to ascertain whether it be 
a revelation from God or not.'' After some further conversation on the subject, 
they expressed a desire to lay the subject before the people, and requested the 
privilege of preaching in Elder Rigdon's church, to which he readily consented, 
The appointment was accordingly published, and a large and respectable congre- 
gation assembled. Oliver Cowdery and Parley P. Pratt severally addressed the 
meeting. At the conclusion Elder Rigdon arose and stated to the congregation 
that the information they that evening had received was of an extraordinary 
character, and certainly demanded their most serious consideration ; and, as the 
apostle advised his brethren 'to prove all things and hold fast that which is 
good,' so he would exhort his brethren to do likewise, and give the matter a care- 
ful investigation, and not turn against it, without being fully convinced of its 
being an imposition, lest they should possibly resist the truth.' 1 '' 2 

Accepting this as a correct report of what occurred (and we 
may consider it from Rigdon's pen), we find a clergyman who 
was a fellow-worker with men like Campbell and Scott expressing 
only " considerable doubt " of the inspiration of a book presented 
to him as a new Bible, " readily consenting " to the use of his 
church by the sponsors for this book, and, at the close of their 
arguments, warning his people against rejecting it too readily 
" lest they resist the truth " ! Unless all these are misstatements, 
there seems to be little necessity of further proof that Rigdon was 
prepared in advance for the reception of the Mormon Bible. 

1 "Autobiography of P. P. Pratt," p. 49. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 47. 



SIDNEY RIGDON 



73 



After this came the announcement of the conversion and 
baptism by the Mormon missionaries of a "family" of seventeen 
persons living in some sort of a " community " system, between 
Mentor and Kirtland. Rigdon, who had merely explained to his 
neighbors that his visitors were " on a curious mission," expressed 
disapproval of this at first, and took Cowdery to task for asserting 
that his own conversion to the new belief was due to a visit from 
an angel. But, two days later, Rigdon himself received an 
angel's visit, and the next Sunday, with his wife, was baptized 
into the new faith. 

Rigdon, of course, had to answer many inquiries on his 
return to Ohio from a visit to Smith which soon followed his 
conversion, but his policy was indignant reticence whenever 
pressed to any decisive point. To an old acquaintance who, after 
talking the matter over with him at his house, remarked that the 
Koran of Mohammed stood on as good evidence as the Bible of 
Smith, Rigdon replied : " Sir, you have insulted me in my own 
house. I command silence. If people come to see us and can- 
not treat us civilly, they can walk out of the door as soon as they 
please." 1 Thomas Campbell sent a long letter to Rigdon under 
date of Februarys 1 831, in which he addressed him as " f or many 
years not only a courteous and benevolent friend, but a beloved 
brother and fellow-laborer in the Gospel — but alas ! how changed, 
how fallen." Accepting a recent offer of Rigdon in one of his 
sermons to give his reasons for his new belief, Mr. Campbell 
offered to meet him in public discussion, even outlining the argu- 
ment he would offer, under nine headings, that Rigdon might be 
prepared to refute it, proposing to take his stand on the suffi- 
ciency of the Holy Scriptures, Smith's bad character, the absurd- 
ities of the Mormon Bible and of the alleged miraculous " gifts," 
and the objections to the " common property" plan and the re- 
baptizing of believers. Rigdon, after glancing over a few lines 
of this letter, threw it into the fire unanswered. 2 

1 "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 112. 2 Ibid., p. 116-123. 



CHAPTER IX 



"THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL" 

Having presented the evidence which shows that the historical 
part of the Mormon Bible was supplied by the Spaulding manu- 
script, we may now pay attention to other evidence, which indicates 
that the entire conception of a revelation of golden plates by an 
angel was not even original, and also that its suggestor was Rigdon. 
This is a subject which has been overlooked by investigators of 
the Mormon Bible. 

That the idea of the revelation as described by Smith in his 
autobiography was not original is shown by the fact that a similar 
divine message, engraved on plates, was announced to have been 
received from an angel nearly six hundred years before the alleged 
visit of an angel to Smith. These original plates were described 
as of copper, and the recipient was a monk named Cyril, from 
whom their contents passed into the possession of the Abbot Joa- 
chim, whose " Everlasting Gospel," founded thereon, was offered 
to the church as supplanting the New Testament, just as the New 
Testament had supplanted the Old, and caused so serious a schism 
that Pope Alexander IV took the severest measures against it. 1 

The evidence that the history of the " Everlasting Gospel " of 
the thirteenth century supplied the idea of the Mormon Bible lies 
not only in the resemblance between the celestial announcement of 
both, but in the fact that both were declared to have the same im- 
portant purport — as a forerunner of the end of the world — and 
that the name " Everlasting Gospel " was adopted and constantly 
used in connection with their message by the original leaders in 
the Mormon church. 

1 Draper's " Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. II, Chap. III. For an 
exhaustive essay on the " Everlasting Gospel," by Renan, see Revue des Deux Mondes, 
June, 1866. For John of Parma's part in the Gospel, see " Histoire Litteraire de la 
France " (1842), Vol. XX, p. 24. 

74 



"THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL" 



75 



If it is asked, How could Rigdon become acquainted with the 
story of the original " Everlasting Gospel," the answer is that it 
was just such subjects that would most attract his attention, and 
that his studies had led him into directions where the story of 
Cyril's plates would probably have been mentioned. He was a 
student of every subject out of which he could evolve a sect, from 
the time of his Pittsburg pastorate. Hepworth Dixon said, " He 
knew the writings of Maham, Gates, and Boyle, writings in which 
love and marriage are considered in relation to Gospel liberty and 
the future life." 1 H. H. Bancroft, noting his appointment as Pro- 
fessor of Church History in Nauvoo University, speaks of him as 
"versed in history, belles-lettres, and oratory." 2 Mrs. James A. 
Garfield told Mrs. Dickenson that Rigdon taught her father Latin 
and Greek. 3 David Whitmer, who was so intimately acquainted 
with the early history of the church, testified : " Rigdon was a thor- 
ough biblical scholar, a man of fine education and a powerful ora- 
tor." 4 A writer, describing Rigdon while the church was at Nau- 
voo, said, " There is no divine in the West more learned in biblical 
literature and the history of the world than he." 5 All this indi- 
cates that a knowledge of the earlier "Everlasting Gospel" was 
easily within Rigdon's reach. We may even surmise the exact 
source of this knowledge. Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History, 
Ancient and Modern" was at his disposal. Editions of it had ap- 
peared in London in 1765, 1768, 1774, 1782, 1790, 1806, 18 10, and 
1826, and among the abridgments was one published in Philadel- 
phia in 1812. In this work he could have read as follows : — 

" About the commencement of this [the thirteenth] century there were handed 
about in Italy several pretended prophecies of the famous Joachim, abbot of Sora 
in Calabria, whom the multitude revered as a person divinely inspired, and equal 
to the most illustrious prophets of ancient times. The greatest part of these 
predictions were contained in a certain book entitled, i The Everlasting Gospel,' 
and which was also commonly called the Book of Joachim. This Joachim, whether 
a real or fictitious person we shall not pretend to determine, among many other 
future events, foretold the destruction of the Church of Rome, whose corruptions 
he censured with the greatest severity, and the promulgation of a new and more 
perfect gospel in the age of the Holy Ghost, by a set of poor and austere minis- 
ters, whom God was to raise up and employ for that purpose. 1 ' 

1 " Spiritual Wives," p. 62. 4 "Address to All Believers in Christ," p. 35. 

2 " Utah," p. 146. 5 Letter in the New York Herald. 

3 Scri&ner's Magazine, October, 1881. 



7 6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Here is a perfect outline of the scheme presented by the origi- 
nal Mormons, with Joseph as the divinely inspired prophet, and an 
" Everlasting Gospel," the gift of an angel, promulgated by poor 
men like the travelling Mormon elders. 

The original suggestion of an " Everlasting Gospel " is found 
in Revelation xiv. 6 and 7 : — 

" And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting 
gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kin- 
dred, and tongue, and people, 

" Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him ; for the hour 
of his judgment is come : and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and 
the sea, and the fountains of water." 1 

This was the angel of Cyril ; this the announcement of those 
" latter days " from which the Mormon church, on Rigdon's motion, 
soon took its name. 

That Rigdon's attention had been attracted to an " Everlasting 
Gospel " is proved by the constant references made to it in writings 
of which he had at least the supervision, from the very beginning 
of the church. Thus, when he preached his first sermon before a 
Mormon audience — on the occasion of his visit to Smith at Pal- 
myra in 1830 — he took as his text a part of the version of Revela- 
tion xiv. which he had put into the Mormon Bible (1 Nephi xiii. 40), 
and in his sermon, as reported by Tucker, who heard it, holding the 
Scriptures in one hand and the Mormon Bible in the other, he said, 
" that they were inseparably necessary to complete the everlast- 
ing gospel of the Saviour Jesus Christ." In the account, in Smith's 
autobiography, of the first description of the buried book given to 
Smith by the angel, its two features are named separately, first, 
" an account of the former inhabitants of this continent," and then 
"the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel." That Rigdon never lost 
sight of the importance, in his view, of an " Everlasting Gospel " 
may be seen from the following quotation from one of his articles 
in his Pittsburg organ, the Messenger and Advocate, of June 15, 

1 " Bisping (after Gerlach) takes Rev. xiv. &-i I to foretell that three great events 
at the end of the last world-week are immediately to precede Christ's second advent : 

(1) the announcement of the 'eternal' Gospel to the whole world (Matt. xxiv. 14); 

(2) the Fall of Babylon; (3) a warning to all who worship the beast. . . . Burger says 
this vision can denote nothing but a last admonition and summons to conversion shortly 
before the end." — Note in " Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy of the Anglican 
Church." 



"THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL" 



77 



1845, after his expulsion from Nauvoo : "It is a strict observance 
of the principles of the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, as contained in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Book of 
Covenants, which alone will insure a man an inheritance in the 
kingdom of our God." 

The importance attached to the " Everlasting Gospel " by the 
founders of the church is seen further in the references to it 
in the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants," which it is not nec- 
essary to cite, 1 and further in a pamphlet by Elder Moses of New 
York (1842), entitled " A Treatise on the Fulness of the Everlast- 
ing Gospel, setting forth its First Principles, Promises, and Bless- 
ings," in which he argued that the appearance of the angel to Smith 
was in direct line with the Scriptural teaching, and that the last 
days were near. 

1 For examples see Sec. 68, 1; Sec. 101, 22; Sec. 124, 88. 



CHAPTER X 



THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES 

In his accounts to his neighbors of the revelation to him of the 
golden plates on which the "record" was written, Smith always 
declared that no person but him could look on those plates and 
live. But when the printed book came out, it, like all subsequent 
editions to this day, was preceded by the following " testimonies " : — 

"The Testimony of Three Witnesses 

" Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this 
work shall come, that we through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord 
Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of 
the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites. their brethren, and also the 
people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken ; and we 
also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his 
voice hath declared it unto us ; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is 
true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the 
plates ; and they have been shewn unto us by the power of God, and not of man. 
And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from 
heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the 
plates, and the engravings thereon ; and we know that it is by the grace of God 
the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these 
things are true ; and it is marvellous in our eyes, nevertheless the voice of the 
Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it ; wherefore, to be obedient 
unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we 
know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of 
all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell 
with him eternally in the heavens. And the honour be to the Father, and to the 
Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. 

•'Oliver Cow t dery. 
David Whitmer, 
Martin Harris. 

"And also the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses 

" Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this 
work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shewn 
unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of 

73 



THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES 



79 



gold ; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle 
with our hands ; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the 
appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear 
record with words of soberness^ that the said Smith has shewn unto us, for we 
have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates 
of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness 
unto the world that which we have seen ; and we lie not, God bearing witness 
of it. 

"Christian Whitmer, Hiram Page, 
Jacob Whitmer, Joseph Smith, Sen., 

Peter Whitmer, Jun., Hyrum Smith, 
John Whitmer, Samuel H. Smith." 

In judging of the value of this testimony, we may first inquire, 
what the prophet has to say about it, and may then look into the 
character and qualification of the witnesses. 

We find a sufficiently full explanation of Testimony No. I in 
Smith's autobiography and in his " revelations." Nothing could 
be more natural than that such men as the prophet was dealing 
with should demand a sight of any plates from which he might 
be translating. Others besides Harris made such a demand, and 
Smith repeated the warning that to look on them was death. 
This might satisfy members of his own family, but it did not 
quiet his scribes, and he tells us that Cowdery, David Whitmer, 
and Harris "teased me so much" (these are his own words) that 
he gave out a "revelation" in March, 1829 (Sec. 5, " Doctrine and 
Covenants "), in which the Lord was represented as saying that the 
prophet had no power over the plates except as He granted it, but 
that to his testimony would be added " the testimony of three of 
my servants, whom I shall call and ordain, unto whom I will show 
these things," adding, " and to none else will I grant this power, 
to receive this same testimony among this generation." The Lord 
was distrustful of Harris, and commanded him not to be talkative 
on the subject, but to say nothing about it except, "I have seen 
them, and they have been shown unto me by the power of God." 

Smith's own account of the showing of the plates to these three 
witnesses is so luminous that it may be quoted. After going out 
into the woods, they had to stand Harris off by himself because of 
his evil influence. Then : — 

" We knelt down again, and had not been many minutes engaged in prayer 
when presently we beheld a light above us in the air of exceeding brightness ; 



8o 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



and behold an angel stood before us. In his hands he held the plates which we 
had been praying for these to have a view of ; he turned over the leaves one by 
one, so that we could see them and discover the engravings thereon distinctly. 
He then addressed himself to David Whitmer and said, < David, blessed is the 
Lord and he that keeps his commandments ' ; when immediately afterward we 
heard a voice from out of the bright light above us saying, ' These plates have 
been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power 
of God. The translation of them is correct, and I command you to bear record 
of what you now see and hear.' 

" I now left David and Oliver, and went into pursuit of Martin Harris, whom 
I found at a considerable distance, fervently engaged in prayer. He soon told 
me, however, that he had not yet prevailed with the Lord, and earnestly requested 
me to join him in prayer, that he might also realize the same blessings which we 
had just received. We accordingly joined in prayer, and immediately obtained 
our desires ; for before we had yet finished, the same vision was opened to our 
view, at least it was again to me [Joe thus refuses to vouch for Harris's declara- 
tion on the subject] ; and I once more beheld and heard the same things ; whilst, 
at the same moment, Martin Harris cried out, apparently in ecstasy of joy, ' 'Tis 
enough, mine eyes hath beheld, 1 and, jumping up, he shouted i Hosannah,' 
blessing God, and otherwise rejoiced exceedingly." 1 

If this story taxes the credulity of the reader, his doubts about 
the value of this " testimony " will increase when he traces the 
history of the three witnesses. Surely, if any three men in the 
church should remain steadfast, mighty pillars of support for 
the prophet in his future troubles, it should be these chosen wit- 
nesses to the actual existence of the golden plates. Yet every one 
of them became an apostate, and every one of them was loaded 
with all the opprobrium that the church could pile upon him. 

Cowdery's reputation was locally bad at the time. "I was 
personally acquainted with Oliver Cowdery," said Danforth 
Booth, an old resident of Palmyra, in 1880. "He was a petti- 
fogger; their (the Smiths') cat-paw to do their dirty work." 2 
Smith's trouble with him, which began during the work of trans- 
lating, continued, and Smith found it necessary to say openly in a 
"revelation" given out in Ohio in 1831 (Sec. 69), when prepara- 
tions were making for a trip of some of the brethren to Missouri, 
" It is not wisdom in me that he should be intrusted with the 
commandments and the monies which he shall carry unto the land 
of Zion, except one go with him who will be true and faithful." 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 19. 

2 Among affidavits on file in the county clerk's office at Canandaigua, New York. 



THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES 



Si 



By the time Smith took his final departure to Missouri, 
Cowdery and David and John Whitmer had lost caste entirely, 
and in June, 1838, they fled to escape the Danites at Far West. 
The letter of warning addressed to them and signed by more than 
eighty Mormons, giving them three days in which to depart, 
contained the following accusations : — 

" After Oliver Cowderv had been taken by a state warrant for stealing: 
and the stolen property found in the house of William W. Phelps ; in which 
nefarious transaction John Whitmer had also participated. Oliver Cowdery 
stole the property, conveyed it to John Whitmer, and John Whitmer to William 
W. Phelps ; and then the officers of law found it. While in the hands of an officer, 
and under an arrest for this vile transaction, and, if possible, to hide your shame 
from the world like criminals (which, indeed, you were), you appealed to our 
beloved brethren. President Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon, men whose 
characters you had endeavored to destroy by every artifice you could invent, not 
even the basest lying excepted. . . . 

" The Saints in Kirtland having elected Oliver Cowdery to a justice of the 
peace, he used the power of that office to take their most sacred rights from them, 
and that contrary to law. He supported a parcel of blacklegs, and in disturbing 
the worship of the Saints ; and when the men whom the church had chosen to 
preside over their meetings endeavored to put the house to order, he helped (and 
by the authority of his justice's office too) these wretches to continue their con- 
fusion ; and threatened the church with a prosecution for trying to put them out 
of the house ; and issued writs against the Saints for endeavoring to sustain their 
rights : and bound themselves under heavy bonds to appear before his honor ; 
and required bonds which were both inhuman and unlawful ; and one of these 
was the venerable father, who had been appointed by the church to preside — a 
man of upwards of seventy years of age, and notorious for his peaceable habits. 

•• Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Lyman E. Johnson, united with a 
gang of counterfeiters, thieves, liars and blacklegs of the deepest dye, to deceive, 
cheat and defraud the Saints out of their property, by every art and stratagem 
which wickedness could invent ; using the influence of the vilest persecutions to 
bring vexatious lawsuits, villainous prosecutions, and even stealing not excepted. . . . 
During the full career of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer's bogus money 
business, it got abroad into the world that they were engaged in it, and several 
gentlemen were preparing to commence a prosecution against Cowdery ; he 
finding it out. took with him Lyman E. Johnson, and fled to Far West with their 
families ; Cowdery stealing property and bringing it with him, which has been, 
within a few weeks past, obtained by the owner by means of a search-warrant ; 
and he was saved from the penitentiary by the influence of two influential men of 
the place. He also brought notes with him upon which he had received pay, 
and made an attempt to sell them to Mr. Arthur of Clay county." 1 

1 " Documents in Relation to the Disturbances with the Mormons," Missouri Legis- 
lature (1841), p. 103. 

G 



82 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Rigdon, who was the author of this arraignment, realizing that 
the enemies of the church would not fail to make use of this 
aspersion of the character of the witnesses, attempted to " hedge" 
by saying in the same document, " We wish to remind you that 
Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were among the principal of 
those who were the means of gathering us to this place by their 
testimony which they gave concerning the plates of the Book of 
Mormon, that they were shown to them by an angel ; which testi- 
mony we believe now as much as before you had so scandalously 
disgraced it." Could affrontery go to greater lengths ? 

Cowdery and David Whitmer fled to Richmond, Missouri, 
where Whitmer lived until his death in January, 1888. Cowdery 
went to Tiffin, Ohio, where, after failing to obtain a position as an 
editor because of his Mormon reputation, he practised law. While 
living there he renounced his Mormon views, joined the Methodist 
church, and became superintendent of a Sunday-school. Later he 
moved to Wisconsin, but, after being defeated for the legislature 
there, he recanted his Methodist belief, and rejoined the Saints 
while they were at Council Bluffs, in October, 1848, after the 
main body had left for Salt Lake Valley. He addressed a meeting 
there by invitation, testifying to the truth of the Book of Mormon, 
and the mission of Smith as a prophet, and saying that he wanted 
to be rebaptized into the church, not as a leader, but simply as a 
member. 1 He did not, however, go to Utah with the Saints, but 
returned to his old friend Whitmer in Missouri, and died there in 
1850. It has been stated that he offered to give a full renunciation 
of the Mormon faith when he united with the Methodists at Tiffin, 
if required, but asked to be excused from doing so on the ground 
that it would invite criticism and bring him into contempt. 2 One 
of his Tiffin acquaintances afterward testified that Cowdery con- 
fessed to him that, when he signed the "testimony," he "was not 
one of the best men in the world," using his own expression. 3 The 
Mormons were always grateful to him for his silence under their 
persecutions, and the Millennial Star, in a notice of his death, 
expressed satisfaction that in the days of his apostasy " he never, 
in a single instance, cast the least doubt on his former testimony," 



1 Millennial Star, Vol. XT, p. 14. 

2 "Naked Truths about Mormonism," A. B. Demming, Oakland, California, 1888. 

3 " Gregg's History of Hancock County, Illinois," p. 257. 



THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES 



83 



adding, " May he rest in peace, to come forth in the morning of 
the first resurrection into eternal life, is the earnest desire of all 
Saints." 

The Whitmers were a Dutch family, known among their neigh- 
bors as believers in witches and in the miraculous generally, as 
has been shown in Mother Smith's account of their sending for 
Joseph. A " revelation " to the three witnesses which first promised 
them a view of the plates (Sec. 17) told them, "It is by your faith 
you shall obtain a view of them," and directed them to testify con- 
cerning the plates, " that my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., may not be 
destroyed." One of the converts who joined the Mormons at 
Kirtland, Ohio, testified in later years that David Whitmer con- 
fessed to her that he never actually saw the plates, explaining his 
testimony thus : " Suppose that you had a friend whose character 
was such that you knew it impossible that he could lie ; then, if he 
described a city to you which you had never seen, could you not, 
by the eye of faith, see the city just as he described it ? " 1 

The Mormons have found consolation in the fact that Whitmer 
continued to affirm his belief in the authenticity of the Mormon 
Bible to the day of his death. He declared, however, that Smith 
and Young had led the flock astray, and, after the open announce- 
ment of polygamy in Utah, he announced a church of his own, 
called "The Church of Christ," refusing to affiliate even with the 
Reorganized Church because of the latter's adherence to Smith. 
In his "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon," a pamphlet 
issued in his eighty-second year, he said, " Now, in 1849 the Lord saw 
fit to manifest unto John Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery and myself 
nearly all the remaining errors of doctrine into which we had been 
led by the heads of the church." The reader from all this can 
form an estimate of the trustworthiness of the second witness on 
such a subject. 

We have already learned a great deal about Martin Harris's men- 
tal equipment. A lawyer of standing in Palmyra told Dr. Clark 
that, after Harris had signed the " testimony," he pressed him 
with the question : " Did you see the plates with your natural eyes, 
just as you see this pencil case in my hand? Now say yes or no." 
Harris replied (in corroboration of Joe's misgiving at the time) : 
" Why, I did not see them as I do that pencil case, yet I saw them 

1 Mrs. Dickenson's "New Light on Mormonism." 



8 4 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



with the eye of faith. I saw them just as distinctly as I see any- 
thing around me — though at the time they were covered over 
with a cloth." 1 

Harris followed Smith to Ohio and then to Missouri, but was 
ever a trouble to him, although Smith always found his money 
useful. In 183 1, in Missouri, it required a " revelation " (Sec. 58) 
to spur him to "lay his monies before the Bishop." As his money 
grew scarcer, he received less and less recognition from the Mor- 
mon leaders, and was finally expelled from the church. Smith 
thus referred to him in the Elders' Journal, July, 1837, one of his 
publications in Ohio : " There are negroes who wear white skins 
as well as black ones, granny Parish, and others who acted as 
lackeys, such as Martin Harris." 

Harris did not appear on the scene during the stay of the 
Mormons in Illinois, having joined the Shakers and lived with 
them a year or two. When Strang claimed the leadership of the 
church after Smith's death, Harris gave him his support, and was 
sent by him with others to England in 1846 to do missionary work. 
His arrival there was made the occasion of an attack on him by 
the Millennial Star, which, among other things, said : — 

" We do not feel to warn the Saints against him, for his own unbridled tongue 
will soon show out specimens of folly enough to give any person a true index 
to the character of the man ; but if the Saints wish to know what the Lord hath 
said of him, they may turn to the 178th page of the Book of Doctrine and Cove- 
nants, and the person there called a wicked man is no other than Martin 
Harris, and he owned to it then, but probably might not now. It is not the 
first time the Lord chose a wicked man as a witness. Also on page 193, read 
the whole revelation given to him, and ask yourselves if the Lord ever talked in 
that way to a good man. Every one can see that he must have been a wicked 
man." 2 

Harris visited Palmyra in 1858. He then said that his prop- 
erty was all gone, that he had declined a restoration to the Mormon 
church, but that he continued to believe in Mormonism. He 
thought better of his declination, however, and sought a reunion 
with the church in Utah in 1870. His backslidings had carried 
him so far that the church authorities told him it would be neces- 
sary for him to be rebaptized. This he consented to with some 
reluctance, after, as he said, " he had seen his father seeking his 
aid. He saw his father at the foot of a ladder, striving to get up 

l " Gleanings by the Way." 2 Vol. VIII, p. 123. 



THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES 



85 



to him, and he went down to him, taking him by the hand, and 
helped him up." 1 He settled in Cache County, Utah, where he 
died on July 10, 1875, in his ninety-third year. " He bore his 
testimony to the truth and divinity of the Book of Mormon a short 
time before he departed," wrote his son to an inquirer, " and the 
last words he uttered, when he could not speak the sentence, were 
4 Book,' 1 Book,' 'Book.'" 

The precarious character of Smith's original partners in the 
Bible business is further illustrated by his statement that, in the 
summer of 1830, Cowdery sent him word that he had discovered 
an error in one of Smith's " revelations," 2 and that the Whitmer 
family agreed with him on the subject. Smith was as determined 
in opposing this questioning of his divine authority as he always 
was in stemming any opposition to his leadership, and he made 
them all acknowledge their error. Again, when Smith returned 
to Fayette from Harmony, in August, 1830 (more than a year 
after the plates were shown to the witnesses), he found that 
" Satan had been lying in wait," and that Hiram Page, of the 
second list of witnesses, had been obtaining revelations through 
a " peek-stone " of his own, and that, what was more serious, 
Cowdery and the Whitmer family believed in them. The result 
of this was an immediate " revelation " (Sec. 28) directing Cowdery 
to go and preach the Gospel to the Lamanites (Indians) on the 
western border, and to take along with him Hiram Page, and tell 
him that the things he had written by means of the " peek-stone " 
were not of the Lord. 

Neither Smith's autobiography nor the "Book of Doctrine and 
Covenants" contains any explanation of the second "testimony." 
The list of persons who signed it, however, leaves little doubt that 
the prophet yielded to their "teasing" as he did to that of the 
original three. The first four signers were members of the Whit- 
mer family. Hiram Page was a root-doctor by calling, and a son- 
in-law of Peter Whitmer, Sr. The three Smiths were the prophet's 
father and two of his brothers. 3 

1 For an account of Harris's Utah experience, see Millennial Star, Vol. XLVIII, 
PP- 357-389. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 36. 

3 Christian Whitmer died in Clay County, Missouri, November 27, 1835; J ac °b died 
in Richmond County, April 21, 1866; Peter died in Clay County, September 22, 1836; 
Hiram Page died on a farm in Ray County, August 12, 1852. 



86 



r .ir, STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The favorite Mormon reply to any question as to the value of 
these " testimonies " is the challenge, " Is there a person on the 
earth who can prove that these eleven witnesses did not see the 
plates ? " Curiously, the prophet himself can be cited to prove 
this, in the words of the revelation granting a sight of the plates to 
the first three, which said, " And to none else will I grant this 
power, to receive this same testimony among this generation." A 
footnote to this declaration in the " Doctrine and Covenants " 
offers, as an explanation of Testimony No. 2, the statement that 
others " may receive a knowledge by other manifestations." This 
is well meant but transparent. 

Mother Smith in later years added herself to these witnesses. 
She said to the Rev. Henry Caswall, in Nauvoo, in 1842, " I have 
myself seen and handled the golden plates." Mr. Caswall adds : 
"While the old woman was thus delivering herself, I fixed my 
eyes steadily upon her. She faltered and seemed unwilling to 
meet my glances, but gradually recovered her self-possession. 
The melancholy thought entered my mind that this poor old 
creature was not simply a dupe of her son's knavery, but that she 
had taken an active part in the deception." 

Two matters have been cited by Mormon authorities to show 
that there was nothing so very unusual in the discovery of buried 
plates containing engraved letters. Announcement was made in 
1843 of the discovery near Kinderhook, Illinois, of six plates simi- 
lar to those described by Smith. The story, as published in the 
Times and Seasons, with a certificate signed by nine local residents, 
set forth that a merchant of the place, named Robert Wiley, while 
digging in a mound, after finding ashes and human bones, came 
to " a bundle that consisted of six plates of brass, of a bell shape, 
each having a hole near the small end, and a ring through them 
all " ; and that, when cleared of rust, they were found to be " com- 
pletely covered with characters that none as yet have been able to 
read." Hyde, accepting this story, printed a facsimile of- one of 
these plates on the cover of his book, and seems to rest on Wiley's 
statement his belief that " Smith did have plates of some kind." 
Stenhouse, 1 who believed that Smith and his witnesses did not 

1 T. B. H. Stenhouse, a Scotchman, was converted to the Mormon belief in 1846, 
performed diligent missionary work in Europe, and was for three years president of the 
Swiss and Italian missions. Joining the brethren in Utah with his wife, he was per- 



Facsimile of One of the Kinderhook Plates. 



Facsimile of One of the Kinderhook Plates. 



mm 



liiillf 1 



yw a 



Facsimile of One of the Kinderhook Plates. 



THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES 



87 



perpetrate in the new Bible an intentional fraud, but thought they 
had visions and " revelations," referring to the Kinderhook plates, 
says that they were "actually and unquestionably discovered by 
one Mr. R. Wiley." Smith himself, after no one else could read 
the writing on them, declared that he had translated them, and 
found them to be a history of a descendant of Ham. 1 

But the true story of the Kinderhook plates was disclosed by 
an affidavit made by W. Fulgate of Mound Station, Brown County, 
Illinois, before Jay Brown, Justice of the Peace, on June 30, 
1879. I n this ne stated that the plates were "a humbug, gotten 
up by Robert Wiley, Bridge Whitton, and myself. Whitton (who 
was a blacksmith) cut the plates out of some pieces of copper ; 
Wiley and I made the hieroglyphics by making impressions on 
beeswax and filling them with acid, and putting it on the plates. 
When they were finished, we put them together with rust made of 
nitric acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop 
iron, covering them completely with the rust." He describes the 
burial of the plates and their digging up, among the spectators of 
the latter being two Mormon elders, Marsh and Sharp. Sharp 
declared that the Lord had directed them to witness the digging. 
The plates were borrowed and shown to Smith, and were finally 
given to one " Professor " McDowell of St. Louis, for his museum. 2 

In attacking Professor Anthon's statement concerning the 
alleged hieroglyphics shown to him by Harris, Orson Pratt, in his 
" Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," thought that he 
found substantial support for Smith's hieroglyphics in the fact that 
" Two years after the Book of Mormon appeared in print, Profes- 
sor Rafinesque, in his Atlantic Journal for 1832, gave to the public 
a facsimile of American glyphs, 3 found in Mexico. They are 

suaded to take a second wife. Not long afterward he joined in the protest against 
Young's dictatorial course which was known as the "New Movement," and was expelled 
from the church. His "Rocky Mountain Saints" (1873) contains so much valuable 
information connected with the history of the church that it has been largely drawn on 
by E. W. Tullidge in his " History of Salt Lake City and Its Founders," which is accepted 
by the church. 

1 Millennial Star, January 15, 1859, where cuts of the plates (here produced) are 
given. 

2 Wyl's " Mormon Portraits," p. 207. The secretary of the Missouri Historical 
Society writes me that McDowell's museum disappeared some years ago, most of its con- 
tents being lost or stolen, and the fate of the Kinderhook plates cannot be ascertained. 

3 " Glyph : A pictograph or word carved in a compact distinct figure." — " Standard 
Dictionary." 



88 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



arranged in columns. ... By an inspection of the facsimile of 
these forty-six elementary glyphs, we find all the particulars which 
Professor Anthon ascribes to the characters which he says ' a 
plain-looking countryman' presented to him." These " elemen- 
tary glyphs " of Rafinesque are some of the characters found on 
the famous "Tablet of the Cross" in the ruins of Palenque, Mex- 
ico, since so fully described by Stevens. A facsimile of the entire 
Tablet may be found on page 355, Vol. IV, Bancroft's "Native 
Races of the Pacific States." Rafinesque selected these charac- 
ters from the Tablet, and arranged them in columns alongside of 
other ancient writings, in order to sustain his argument that they 
resembled an old Libyan alphabet. Rafinesque was a voluminous 
writer both on archaeological and botanical subjects, but wholly 
untrustworthy. Of his Atlantic Journal (of which only eight num- 
bers appeared) his biographer, R. E. Call, says that it had " abso- 
lutely no scientific value." Professor Asa Gray, in a review of 
his botanical writings in Silliman's Journal, Vol. XL, No. 2, 1841, 
said, "He assumes thirty to one hundred years as the average 
time required for the production of a new species, and five hun- 
dred to one thousand for a new genus." Professor Gray refers to 
a paper which Rafinesque sent to the editor of a scientific journal 
describing twelve new species of thunder and lightning. He was 
very fond of inventing names, and his designation of Palenque as 
Otolum was only an illustration of this. So much for the " ele- 
mentary glyphs." 



CHAPTER XI 
THE MORMON BIBLE 

The Mormon Bible, 1 both in a literary and a theological sense, 
is just such a production as would be expected to result from hand- 
ing over to Smith and his fellow-" translators " a mass of Spauld- 
ing's material and new doctrinal matter for collation and copying. 
Not one of these men possessed any literary skill or accurate 
acquaintance with the Scriptures. David Whitmer, in an interview 
in Missouri in his later years, said, " So illiterate was Joseph at 
that time that he didn't know that Jerusalem was a walled city, and 
he was utterly unable to pronounce many of the names that the 
magic power of the Urim and Thummim revealed." Chronology, 
grammar, geography, and Bible history were alike ignored in the 
work. An effort was made to correct some of these errors in the 
early days of the church, and Smith speaks of doing some of this 
work himself at Nauvoo. An edition issued there in 1842 con- 
tains on the title-page the words, " Carefully revised by the trans- 
lator." Such corrections have continued to the present day, and a 
comparison of the latest Salt Lake edition with the first has shown 
more than three thousand changes. 

The person who for any reason undertakes the reading of this 
book sets before himself a tedious task. Even the orthodox Mor- 
mons have found this to be true, and their Bible has played a very 
much less considerable part in the church worship than Smith's 
"revelations" and the discourses of their preachers. Referring 
to Orson Pratt's 2 labored writings on this Bible, Stenhouse says, 

1 The title of this Bible is " The Book of Mormon " ; but as one of its sub- 
divisions is a Book of Mormon, I use the title " Mormon Bible," both to avoid confu- 
sion and for convenience. 

2 Orson Pratt was a clerk in a store in Hiram, Ohio, when he was converted to 
Mormonism. He seems to have been a natural student, and he rose to prominence in 
the church, being one of the first to expound and defend the Mormon Bible and doc- 
trines, holding a professorship in Nauvoo University, publishing works on the higher 
mathematics, and becoming one of the Twelve Apostles. 

89 



90 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" Of the hundreds of thousands of witnesses to whom God has 
revealed the truth of the 'Book of Mormon,' Pratt knows full well 
that comparatively few indeed have ever read that book, know little 
or nothing intelligently of its contents, and take little interest in 
it." 1 An examination of its contents is useful, therefore, rather 
as a means of proving the fraudulent character of its pretension 
to divine revelation than as a means of ascertaining what the 
members of the Mormon church are taught. 

The following page presents a facsimile of the title-page of 
the first edition of this Bible. The editions of to-day substitute 
"Translated by Joseph Smith, Jun.," for "By Joseph Smith, junior, 
author and proprietor." 

The first edition contains 588 duodecimo pages, and is divided 
into 1 5 books which are named as follows : " First Book of Nephi, 
his reign and ministry," 7 chapters ; " Second Book of Nephi," 
1 5 chapters ; " Book of Jacob, the Brother of Nephi," 5 chapters ; 
" Book of Enos," 1 chapter ; " Book of Jarom," 1 chapter ; " Book 
of Omni," 1 chapter; "Words of Mormon," 1 chapter; "Book of 
Mosiah," 13 chapters; "Book of Alma, a Son of Alma," 30 chap- 
ters ; " Book of Helaman," 5 chapters ; " Third Book of Nephi, 
the Son of Nephi, which was the son of Helaman," 14 chapters ; 
" Fourth Book of Nephi, which is the Son of Nephi, one of the 
Disciples of Jesus Christ," 1 chapter ; " Book of Mormon," 4 chap- 
ters ; " Book of Ether," 6 chapters ; " Book of Moroni," 10 chap- 
ters. The chapters in the first edition were not divided into 
verses, that work, with the preparation of the very complete foot- 
note references in the later editions, having been performed by 
Orson Pratt. 

The historical narrative that runs through the book is so dis- 
jointedly arranged, mixed up with doctrinal parts, and repeated, 
that it is not easy to unravel it. The following summary of it is 
contained in a letter to Colonel John Wentworth of Chicago, signed 
by Joseph Smith, Jr., which was printed in Wentworth's Chicago 
newspaper and also in the Mormon Times and Seasons of March 
1, 1842 : — 

"The history of America is unfolded from its first settlement by a colony that 
came from the Tower of Babel at the confusion of languages, to the beginning of 

1 " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 553. 



THE 

BOOK OF MORMON 



AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MOR- 
MON, UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM 
THE PLATES OF NEPHI. 

Wherefore it is an abridgment of the Record of the People of Nephi ; and also of 
the Lananites ; written to the Lamanites, which are a remnant of die House of 
Israel , tnd n\<o to Jew and Gentile ; written by way of commandment, and also 
by 1 he spirit of Prophesy and of Revelation. Written, and sealed'up, and hid 
up unto' 'he Lord, tnat they might not be destroyed ; to come forth by the gift* 
and power of God : unto the interpretation thereof; sealed by the hand of Moro- 
ni, and hi'J up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; 
the internretafion thereof by die gift of God ; an abridgment taken from the i 
r J? Book of Ftlier. 

Also, which is a Record of the People of Jared, which were scattered at the time 
* the Lord confounded the language of the people when they were building a 
tower to get to Heaven : which is to shew unto the remnant of the House of 
Israel how great things the Lord hath done for their fathers ; and that they may 
know the covenants of the LdRD, that tiiey are not cast off forever ; and also to 
the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Etewn^i, 
God, manife ring Himself unto all nations. And now if there be fault, it be the 
mistake of m n ; wiierefore condemn not the things of God, that ye may be 
found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ. 



BY JOSEPH SMITH, JUNIOR, 

AUTHOR AND PROPRIETORi 



PALMYRA : 

'POINTED BY E. B..GRA.NDIX, FOR, THE AUTHOR. 

ii*o. 



Facsimile of Title-page of First Edition of Mormon Bible. 



THE MORMON BIBLE 



91 



the 5th century of the Christian era. We are informed by these records that 
America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. 
The first were called Jaredites, and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The 
second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem about 600 years before 
Christ. They were principally Israelites of the descendants of Joseph. The 
Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, 
who succeeded them in the inhabitance of the country. The principal nation of 
the second race fell in battle toward the close of the fourth century. The remnant 
are the Indians that now inhabit this country." 

This history purports to have been handed down, on metallic 
plates, from one historian to another, beginning with Nephi, from 
the time of the departure from Jerusalem. Finally (4 Nephi i. 
48, 49 ! ), the people being wicked, Ammaron, by direction of the 
Holy Ghost, hid these sacred records "that they might come again 
unto the remnant of the house of Jacob." 

To bring the story down to a comparatively recent date, and 
account for the finding of the plates by Smith, the Book of Mor- 
mon was written by the " author." This subdivision is an abridg- 
ment of the previous records. It relates that Mormon, a descendant 
of Nephi, when ten years old, was told by Ammaron that, when 
about twenty-four years old, he should go to the place where the 
records were hidden, take only the plates of Nephi, and engrave 
on them all the things he had observed concerning the people. 
The next year Mormon was taken by his father, whose name also 
was Mormon, to the land of Zarahemla, which had become cov- 
ered with buildings and very populous, but the people were warlike 
and wicked. Mormon in time, " seeing that the Lamanites were 
about to overthrow the land," took the records from their hiding- 
place. He himself accepted the command of the armies of the 
Nephites, but they were defeated with great slaughter, the Laman- 
ites laying waste their cities and driving them northward. 

Finally Mormon sent a letter to the king of the Lamanites, 
asking that the Nephites might gather their people " unto the 
land of Cumorah, by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there 
we would give them battle." There, in the year 384 a.d., Mor- 
mon " made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in 
the hill Cumorah all the records which have been entrusted to me 
by the hand of the Lord, save it were those few plates which I 

1 All references to the Mormon Bible by chapter and verse refer to Salt Lake 
City edition of 1888. 



92 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



gave unto my son Moroni." 1 This hill, according to the Mormon 
teaching, is the hill near Palmyra, New York, where Smith found 
the plates, just as Mormon had deposited them. 

In the battle which took place there the Nephites were practi- 
cally annihilated, and all the fugitives were killed except Moroni, 
the son of Mormon, who undertook the completion of the " record." 
Moroni excuses the briefness of his narrative by explaining that 
he had not room in the plates, " and ore have I none " (to make 
others). What he adds is in the nature of a defence of the re- 
vealed character of the Mormon Bible and of Smith's character as 
a prophet. Those, for instance, who say that there are no longer 
" revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor speaking 
with tongues," are told that they know not the Gospel of Christ 
and do not understand the Scriptures. An effort is made to fore- 
stall criticism of the " mistakes " that are conceded in the title-page 
-dedication by saying, " Condemn me not because of mine imper- 
fection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither 
them who have written before him " (Book of Mormon ix. 31). 

Evidently foreseeing that it would be asked why these " rec- 
ords," written by Jews and their descendants, were not in Hebrew, 
Mormon adds (cha.p. ix. 32, 33): — 

" And now behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, 
In the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed 
down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. 

" And if our plates had been sufficiently large, we should have written in He- 
brew ; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also ; and if we could have written 

in Hebrew, behold, "ej would have had no imperfection in our record." 
■ * --- 

Few parts of this mythical Bible approached nearer to the 
burlesque than this excuse for having descendants of the Jews 
write in " reformed Egyptian." 

The secular story of the ancient races running through this 
Bible is so confused by the introduction of new matter by the 
"author" 2 and by repetitions that it is puzzling to pick it out. 

1 Hyde gives a list of twenty-four additional plates mentioned in this Bible which 
must still await digging up in the hill near Palmyra. 

2 Professor Whitsitt, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, 
Kentucky, in his article on Mormonism in "The Concise Dictionary of Religious 
Knowledge, and Gazetteer" (New York, 1891), divides the Mormon Bible into three 
sections, viz. : the first thirteen books, presented as the works of Mormon; the Book of 
Ether, with which Mormon had no connection; and the fifteenth book, "which was 



THE MORMON BIBLE 



93 



The Book of Ether was somewhat puzzling even to the early Mor- 
mons, and we find Parley P. Pratt, in his analysis of it, printed in 
London in 1854, saying, "Ether seems to have been a lineal 
descendant of Jared." 

Very concisely, this Bible story of the most ancient race that 
came to America, the Jaredites, may be thus stated : — 

This race, being righteous, were not punished by the Lord at 
Babel, but were led to the ocean, where they constructed a vessel 
by direction of the Lord, in which they sailed to North America. 
According to the Book of Ether, there were eight of these vessels, 
and that they were remarkable craft needs only the description 
given of them to show : " They were built after a manner that 
they were exceeding tight, even that they would hold water like 
unto a dish ; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish ; 
and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish ; and the ends 
thereof were peaked ; and the top thereof was tight like unto a 
dish ; and the length thereof was the length of a tree ; and the 
door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish" (Book 

sent forth by the editor under the name of Moroni." He thus explains his view of the 
" editing " that was done in the preparation of the work for publication : — 

"The editor undertook to rewrite and recast the whole of the abridgment (of 
Nephi's previous history), but his industry failed him at the close of the Book of Omni. 
The first six books that he had rewritten were given the names of the small plates. . . . 
The book called the ' Words of Mormon ' in the original work stood at the beginning, as 
a sort of preface to the entire abridgment of Mormon; but when the editor had rewrit- 
ten the first six books, he felt that these were properly his own performance, and the 
'Words of Mormon ' were assigned a position just in front of the Book of Mosiah, when 
the abstract of Mormon took its real commencement. . . . 

"The question may now be raised as to who was the editor of the Book of Mormon. 
. . . In its theological positions and coloring the Book i>f Mormon is a volume of 
Disciple theology (this does not include the later polygamous doctrine and other gross 
Mormon errors). This conclusion is capable of demonstration beyond any reasonable 
question. Let notice also be taken of the fact that the Book of Mormon bears traces * 
of two several redactions. It contains, in the first redaction, that type of doctrine which 
the Disciples held and proclaimed prior to November 18, 1827, when they had not yet 
formally embraced what is commonly considered to be the tenet of baptismal remission. 
It also contains the type of doctrine which the Disciples have been defending since 
November 18, 1827, under the name of the ancient Gospel, of which the tenet of so- 
called baptismal remission is a leading feature. All authorities agree that Mr. Smith 
obtained possession of the work on September 22, 1827, a period of nearly two months 
before the Disciples concluded to embrace this tenet. The editor felt that the Book of 
Mormon would be sadly incomplete if this notion were not included. Accordingly, he 
found means to communicate with Mr. Smith, and, regaining possession of certain por- 
tions of the manuscript, to insert the new item. . . . Rigdon was the only Disciple min- 
ister who vigorously and continuously demanded that his brethren should adopt the 
additional points that have been indicated." 



94 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



of Ether ii. 17). This description certainly establishes the general 
resemblance of these barges to some kind of a dish, but the rather 
careless comparison of their length simply to that of a "tree" 
leaves this detail of construction uncertain. 

Just before they embarked in these vessels, a brother of Jared 
went up on Mount Shelem, where the Lord touched sixteen small 
stones that he had taken up with him, two of which were the Urim 
and Thummim, by means of which Smith translated the plates. 
These stones lighted up the vessels on their trip across the ocean. 
Jared's brother was told by the spirit on the mount, " Behold, I am 
Jesus Christ." A footnote in the modern edition of this Bible 
kindly explains that Jared's brother " saw the preexistent spirit of 
Jesus." 

When they landed (somewhere on the Isthmus of Darien), the 
Lord commanded Nephi to make " plates of ore," on which should 
be engraved the record of the people. This was the origin of 
Smith's plates. In time this people divided themselves, under the 
leadership of two of Lehi's sons — Nephi and Laman — into Ne- 
phites and Lamanites (with subdivisions). The Lamanites, in the 
course of two hundred years, had become dark in color and " wild 
and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people ; full of idolatry and filthi- 
ness ; feeding upon beasts of prey ; dwelling in tents and wander- 
ing about in the wilderness, with a short skin girdle about their 
loins, and their heads shaven ; and their skill was in the bow and 
the cimeter and the ax" (Enos i. 20). The Nephites, on the 
other hand, tilled the land and raised flocks. Between the two 
tribes wars waged, the Nephites became wicked, and in the course 
of 320 years the worst of them were destroyed (Book of Alma). 

Then the Lord commanded those who would hearken to his 
voice to depart with him to the wilderness, and they journeyed 
until they came to the land of Zarahemla, which a footnote to the 
modern edition explains " is supposed to have been north of the 
head waters of the river Magdalena, its northern boundary being 
a few days' journey south of the Isthmus " (of Darien). There 
they found the people of Zarahemla, who had left Jerusalem when 
Zedekiah was carried captive into Babylon. New teachers arose 
who taught the people righteousness, and one of them, named 
Alma, led a company to "a place which was called Mormon," 
where was a fountain of pure water, and there Alma baptized the 



THE MORMON BIBLE 



95 



people. The Book of Alma, the longest in this Bible, is largely 
an account of the secular affairs of the inhabitants, with stories of 
great battles, a prediction of the coming of Christ, and an account 
of a great migration northward, and the building of ships that 
sailed in the same direction. 

3 Nephi describes the appearance of Christ to the people of 
the western continent, preceded by a star, earthquakes, etc. On 
the day of His appearance they heard "a small voice" out of 
heaven, saying, " Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased, in whom I have glorified my name ; hear ye him." Then 
Christ appeared and spoke to them, generally in the language of 
the New Testament (repeating, for instance, the Sermon on the 
Mount 1 ), and afterward ascended into heaven in a cloud. The 
expulsion of the Nephites northward, and their final destruction, in 
what is now New York State, followed in the course of the next 
384 years. 

There is throughout the book an imitation of the style of the 
Holy Scriptures. Verse after verse begins with the words "and 
it came to pass," as Spaulding's Ohio neighbors recalled that his 
story did. The following extract, from 1 Nephi, chap, viii, will 
give an illustration of the literary style of a large part of the 
work : — 

" 1 . And it came to pass that we had gathered together all manner of seeds 
of every kind, both of grain of every kind, and also of the seeds of fruit of every 
kind. 

"2. And it came to pass that while my father tarried in the wilderness, he 
spake unto us, saying, Behold, I have dreamed a dream ; or in other words, I 
have seen a vision. 

"3. And behold, because of the thing which I have seen, I have reason to 
rejoice in the Lord, because of Nephi and also of Sam ; for I have reason to sup- 
pose that they, and also many of their seed, will be saved. 

" 4. But behold, Laman and Lemuel, I fear exceedingly because of you ; for 
behold, methought I saw in my dream, a dark and dreary wilderness. 

"5. And it came to pass that I saw a man, and he was dressed in a white 
robe ; and he came and stood before me. 

"6. And it came to pass that he spake unto me, and bade me follow him. 

1 In the Mormon version of this sermon the words, " If thy right eye offend thee, 
pluck it out and cast it from thee," and " If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and 
cast it from thee," are lacking. The Deseret Evening News of February 21, 1900, in 
explaining this omission, says that the report by Mormon of the " discourse delivered by 
Jesus Christ to the Nephites on this continent after his resurrection from the dead . . . 
may not be full and complete." 



9 6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



"7. And it came to pass that as I followed him, I beheld myself that I was 
in a dark and dreary waste. 

"8. And after I had travelled for the space of many hours in darkness, I 
began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the 
multitude of his tender mercies. 

"9. And it came to pass after I had prayed unto the Lord, I beheld a large 
and spacious field. 

"10. And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to 
make one happy. 

"11. And it came to pass that I did go forth, and partake of the fruit thereof; 
and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, 
and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I 
had ever seen." 

Whole chapters of the Scriptures are incorporated word for 
word. In the first edition some of these were appropriated with- 
out any credit ; in the Utah editions they are credited. Beside 
these, Hyde counted 298 direct quotations from the New Testa- 
ment, verses or sentences, between pages 2 to 428, covering the 
years from 600 B.C. to Christ's birth. Thus, Nephi relates that his 
father, more than two thousand years before the King James edi- 
tion of the Bible was translated, in announcing the coming of 
John the Baptist, used these words, " Yea, even he should go 
forth and cry in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
and make his paths straight ; for there standeth one among you 
whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's 
latchet I am not worthy to unloose" (1 Nephi x. 8). In Mosiah 
v. 8, King Benjamin is represented as saying, 124 years before 
Christ was born, " I would that you should take upon you the name 
of Christ" as "there is no other name given whereby salvation 
cometh." 

The first Nephi represents John as baptizing in Bethabara (the 
spelling is Beathabry in the Utah edition), and Alma announces 
(vii. 10) that "the Son of God shall be born of Mary at Jerusa- 
lem." Shakespeare is proved a plagiarist by comparing his words 
with those of the second Nephi, who, speaking twenty-two hundred 
years before Shakespeare was born, said (2 Nephi i. 14), " Hear 
the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs you must soon lay 
down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveller can 
return." 

The chapters of the Scriptures appropriated bodily, and the 
places where they may be found, are as follows : — 



THE MORMON BIBLE 



97 



First Edition 



Utah Edition 



Isaiah xlviii and xlix 

Isaiah 1 and li . . 

Isaiah Hi ... . 

Isaiah liv . . . . 

Isaiah ii to xiv . . 

Malachi iii, iv . . . 

Matthew v, vi, vii . . 
i Corinthians xiii .... 



pp. 52 to 56 
pp. 76 
pp. 498 
pp. 501, 502 



pp. 86 to 101 
pp. 503 to 505 
pp. 479 to 483 

pp. 580 



2 Nephi, ch. xii to xxiv 

3 Nephi, ch. xxiv, xxv 
3 Nephi, ch. xii to xix 
Moroni, ch. vii 



2 Nephi, ch. vii 

3 Nephi, ch. xx 
3 Nephi, ch. xx 



1 Nephi, ch. xx, xxi 



Among the many anachronisms to be found in the book may 
be mentioned the giving to Laban of a sword with a blade " of 
the most precious steel " (1 Nephi iv. 9), centuries before the use 
of steel is elsewhere recorded, and the possession of a compass by 
the Jaredites when they sailed across the ocean (Alma xxxvii. 38), 
long before the invention of such an instrument. The ease with 
which such an error could be explained is shown in the anecdote 
related of a Utah Mormon who, when told that the compass was 
not known in Bible times, responded by quoting Acts xxviii. 13, 
where Paul says, "And from thence we fetched a compass." 
When Nephi and his family landed in Central America " there 
were beasts in the forest of every kind, both the cow, and the ox, 
and the ass, and the horse" (1 Nephi xviii. 25). If Nephi does 
not prevaricate, there must have been a fatal plague among these 
animals in later years, for horses, cows, and asses were unknown 
in America until after its discovery by Europeans. Moroni, in 
the Book of Ether (ix. 18, 19), is still more generous, adding to 
the possessions of the Jaredites sheep and swine 1 and elephants 
and " cureloms and cumoms." Neither sheep nor swine are in- 
digenous to America; but the prophet is safe as regards the 
" cureloms and cumoms," which are animals of his own creation. 

The book is full of incidental proofs of the fraudulent profes- 
sion that it is an original translation. For instance, in incorporat- 
ing 1 Corinthians iii. 4, in the Book of Moroni, the phrase "is 
not easily provoked " is retained, as in the King James edition. 
But the word " easily " is not found in any Greek manuscript of 
this verse, and it is dropped in the Revised Version of 1881. 

Stenhouse calls attention to many phrases in this Bible which 
were peculiar to the revival preachers of those days, like Rigdon, 

1 " And," it is added, " many other kinds of animals which were useful for the use 
of man," thus ignoring the Hebrew antipathy to pork. 



H 



9 8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



such as " Have ye spiritually been born of God ? " " If ye have 
experienced a change of heart." 

The first edition was full of grammatical errors and amusing 
phrases. Thus we are told, in Ether xv. 31, that when Coriantumr 
smote off the head of Shiz, the latter " raised upon his hands 
and fell." Among other examples from the first edition may be 
quoted : " and I sayeth " ; " all things which are good cometh of 
God"; "neither doth his angels"; and " hath miracles ceased." 
We find in Helaman ix. 6, "He being stabbed by his brother by a 
garb of secrecy." This remains uncorrected. 

Alexander Campbell, noting the mixture of doctrines in the 
book, says, " He [the author] decides all the great controversies 
[discussed in New York in the last ten years], infant baptism, the 
Trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the 
atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church govern- 
ment, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal 
punishment, who may baptize, and even the questions of Free- 
masonry, republican government and the rights of man." 1 

Such is the book which is accepted to this day as an inspired 
work by the thousands of persons who constitute the Mormon 
church. This acceptance has always been rightfully recognized 
as fundamentally necessary to the Mormon faith. Orson Pratt 
declared, " The nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is 
such that, if true, none can be saved who reject it, and, if false, none 
can be saved who receive it." Brigham Young told the Confer- 
ence at Nauvoo in October, 1844, that " Every spirit that confesses 
that Joseph Smith is a prophet, that he lived and died a prophet, 
and that the Book of Mormon is true, is of God, and every spirit 
that does not is of Anti-Christ." There is no modification of this 
view in the Mormon church of to-day. 

1 "Delusions: an Analysis of the Book of Mormon" (1832). An exhaustive exami- 
nation of this Bible will be found in the " Braden and Kelley Public Discussion." 



CHAPTER XII 

ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 

The director of the steps taken to announce to the world a new 
Bible and a new church realized, of course, that there must be 
priests, under some name, to receive members and to dispense its 
blessing. No person openly connected with Smith in the work 
of translation had been a clergyman. Accordingly, on May 15, 
1829 (still following the prophet's own account), while Smith and 
Cowdery were yet busy with the work of translation, they went 
into the woods to ask the Lord for fuller information about the 
baptism mentioned in the plates. There a messenger from heaven, 
who, it was learned, was John the Baptist, appeared to them in a 
cloud of light, " and having laid his hands on us, he ordained us, 
saying unto us, ' Upon you, my fellow servants, in the name of 
Messiah, I confer the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys 
of the ministering angels, and of the Gospel of repentance, and 
of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins.' " The mes- 
senger also informed them that " the power of laying on of hands 
for the gift of the Holy Ghost " would be conferred on them later, 
through Peter, James, and John, " who held the keys of the priest- 
hood of Melchisedec " ; but he directed Smith to baptize Cowdery, 
and Cowdery then to perform the same office for Smith. This they 
did at once, and as soon as Cowdery came out of the water he 
"stood up and prophesied many things" (which the prophet pru- 
dently omitted to record). The divine authority thus conferred, 
according to Orson Pratt, exceeds that of the bishops of the Roman 
church, because it came direct from heaven, and not through a suc- 
cession of popes and bishops. 1 

1 Orson Pratt, in his "Questions and Answers on Doctrine" in his Washington 
newspaper, the Seer (p. 205), thus denned the Mormon view of the Roman Catholic 
church : — 



99 



TOO 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Smith and Cowdery at once began telling of the power con- 
ferred upon them, and giving their relatives and friends an oppor- 
tunity to become members of the new church. Smith's brother 
Samuel was the first convert won over, Cowdery baptizing him. 
His brother Hyrum came next, 1 and then one J. Knight, Sr., of 
Colesville, New York. 2 Each new convert was made the subject 
of a " revelation," each of which began, " A great and marvelous 
work is about to come forth among the children of men." Hyrum 
Smith, and David and Peter Whitmer, Jr., were baptized in Seneca 
Lake in June, and " from this time forth," says Smith, " many 
became believers and were baptized, while we continued to in- 
struct and persuade as many as applied for information." 

By April 6, 1830, branches of the new church had been 
established at Fayette, Manchester, and Colesville, New York, 
with some seventy members in all, it has been stated. Section 20 
of the "Doctrine and Covenants" names April 6, 1830, as the 
date on which the church was "regularly organized and estab- 
lished, agreeable to the laws of our country." This date has 
been incorrectly given as that on which the first step was taken to 
form a church organization. What was done then was to organize in 
a form which, they hoped, would give the church a standing as a 
legal body. 3 The meeting was held at the house of Peter Whit- 
mer. Smith, who, it was revealed, should be the first elder, 
ordained Cowdery, and Cowdery subsequently ordained Smith. 
The sacrament was then administered, and the new elders laid 
their hands on the others present. 

"The revelation" (Sec. 20) on the form of church government 
is dated April, 1830, at least six months before Rigdon's name 

Q. " Is the Roman Catholic Church the Church of Christ ? " A. " No, for she has 
no inspired priesthood or officers." 

Q. " After the Church of Christ fled from earth to heaven what was left ? " A. " A 
set of wicked apostates, murderers and idolaters," etc. 

Q. " Who founded the Roman Catholic Church ? " A. " The devil, through the 
medium of the apostates, who subverted the whole order of God by denying immediate 
revelation, and substituting in place thereof tradition and ancient revelations as a suffi- 
cient rule of faith and practice." 

1 Hyrum wanted to start in to preach at once, and a " revelation " was necessary to 
inform him : " You need not suppose you are called to preach until you are called. . . . 
Keep my commandments ; hold your peace" (Sec. n). 

2 Colesville is the township in Broome County of which Harpursville is the voting 
place. Smith organized his converts there about two miles north of Harpursville. 

8 Whitmer's " Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon." 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 



IOI 



was first associated with the scheme by the visit of Cowdery and 
his companions to Ohio. If the date is correct, it shows that Rig- 
don had forwarded this " revelation " to Smith for promulgation, for 
Rigdon was unquestionably the originator of the system of church 
government. David Whitmer has explained, " Rigdon would ex- 
pound the Old Testament Scriptures of the Bible and Book of 
Mormon, in his way, to Joseph, concerning the priesthood, high 
priests, etc., and would persuade Brother Joseph to inquire of the 
Lord about this doctrine and about that doctrine, and of course 
a revelation would always come just as they desired it." 1 

The "revelation" now announced defined the duty of elders, 
priests, teachers, deacons, and members of the Church of Christ. 
An apostle was an elder, and it was his calling to baptize, ordain, 
administer the sacrament, confirm, preach, and take the lead in all 
meetings. A priest's duty was to preach, baptize, administer the 
sacrament, and visit members at their houses. Teachers and dea- 
cons could not baptize, administer the sacrament, or lay on hands, 
but were to preach and invite all to join the church. The elders 
were directed to meet in conference once in three months, and 
there was to be a High Council, or general conference of the 
church, by which should be ordained every President of the high 
priesthood, bishop, high counsellor, and high priest. 

Smith's leadership had, before this, begun to manifest itself. 
He had, in a generous mood, originally intended to share with 
others the honor of receiving "revelations," the first of these in 
the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants," saying, " I the Lord also 
gave commandments to others, that they should proclaim these 
things to the world." In the original publication of these " reve- 
lations," under the title " Book of Commandments," we find such 
headings as, " A revelation given to Oliver," " A revelation given 
to Hyrum," etc. These headings are all changed in the modern 
edition to read, " Given through Joseph the Seer," etc. 

Cowdery was the first of his associates to seek an open share 
in the divine work. Smith was so pleased with his new scribe 
when they first met at Harmony, Pennsylvania, that he at once 
received a " revelation " which incited Cowdery to ask for a divi- 
sion of power. Cowdery was told (Sec. 6), "And behold, I grant 
unto you a gift, if you desire of me, to translate even as my ser- 

1 Whitmer's " Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon." 



102 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



vant Joseph." Cowdery's desire manifested itself immediately, 
and Joseph almost as quickly became conscious that he had com- 
mitted himself too soon. Accordingly, in another " revelation," 
dated the same month of April, 1829 (Sec. 8), he attempted to 
cajole Oliver by telling him about a "gift of Aaron" which he 
possessed, and which was a remarkable gift in itself, adding, " Do 
not ask for that which you ought not." But Cowdery naturally 
clung to his promised gift, and kept on asking, and he had to be 
told right away in still another " revelation " (Sec. 9), that he had 
not understood, but that he must not murmur, since his work was 
to write for Joseph. If he was in doubt about a subject, he was 
advised to " study it out in your mind " ; and if it was right, the 
Lord promised, " I will cause that your bosom shall burn within 
you " ; but if it was not right, " you shall have a stupor of thought, 
that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong." To 
assist him until he became accustomed to discriminate between 
this burning feeling and this stupor, the Lord told him very 
plainly, " It is not expedient that you should translate now." 
That all this rankled in Cowdery's heart was shown by his 
attempt to revise one of Smith's " revelations," and the support he 
gave to Hiram Page's " gazing." 

Cowdery continued to annoy the prophet, and Smith decided to 
get rid of him. Accordingly in July, 1830, came a "revelation," 
originally announced as given direct to Joseph's wife Emma, 
instructing her to act as her husband's scribe, " that I may send 
my servant Oliver Cowdery whithersoever I will." This occurred 
on a trip the Smiths had made to Harmony. On their return to 
Fayette, Smith found Cowdery still persistent, and he accordingly 
gave out a " revelation " to him, telling him again that he must not 
"write by way of commandment," inasmuch as Smith was at the 
head of the church, and directing him to " go unto the Lamanites 
(Indians) and preach my Gospel unto them." This was the first 
mention of the westward movement of the church which shaped 
all its later history. 

A "revelation" in June, 1829 (Sec. 18), had directed the 
appointment of the twelve apostles, whom Cowdery and David 
Whitmer were to select. The organized members now began to 
inquire who was their leader, and Smith, in a "revelation" dated 
April 6, 1830 (Sec. 21), addressed to himself, announced : " Behold 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 



103 



there shall be a record kept among you, and in it thou shalt be 
called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, 
an elder of the church through the will of God the Father, and the 
grace of your Lord Jesus Christ"; and the church was directed 
in these words, " For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine 
own mouth, in all patience and faith." Thus was established an 
authority which Smith defended until the day of his death, and 
before which all who questioned it went down. 

Some of the few persons who at this time expressed a willing- 
ness to join the new church showed a repugnance to being baptized 
at his hands, and pleaded previous baptism as an excuse for evad- 
ing it. But Smith's tyrannical power manifested itself at once, and 
he straightway announced a "revelation" (Sec. 22), in which the 
Lord declared, " All old covenants have I caused to be done away 
in this thing, and this is a new and everlasting covenant, even that 
which was from the beginning." 

Five days after the formal organization, the first sermon to the 
Mormon church was preached in the Whitmer house by Oliver 
Cowdery, Smith probably concluding that it would be wiser to 
confine himself to the receipt of " revelations " rather than to 
essay pulpit oratory too soon. Six additional persons were then 
baptized. Soon after this the first Mormon miracle was per- 
formed — the casting out of a devil from a young man named 
Newel Knight. 

The first conference of the organized church was held at Fay- 
ette, New York, in June, 1830, with about thirty members present. 
In recent " revelations " the prophet had informed his father and 
his brothers Hyrum and Samuel that their calling was " to exhor- 
tation and to strengthen the church," so that they were provided 
for in the new fold. 

The region in New York State where the Smiths had lived 
and were well known was not favorable ground for their labors 
as church officers, conducting baptisms and administering the 
sacrament. When they dammed a small stream in order to secure 
a pool for an announced baptism, the dam was destroyed during 
the night. A Presbyterian sister-in-law of Knight, from whom a 
devil had been cast, announced her conversion to Smith's church, 
and, when she would not listen to the persuasions of her pastor, 
the latter obtained legal authority from her parents and carried 



104 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



her away by force. She succeeded, however, in securing the 
wished-for baptism. All this stirred up public feeling against 
Smith, and he was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. 

At the trial, testimony was offered to show that he had obtained 
a horse and a yoke of oxen from his dupes, on the statement that 
a " revelation " had informed him that he was to have them, and 
that he had behaved improperly toward the daughters of one of 
these men. But the parties interested all testified in his favor, 
and the prosecution failed. He was immediately rearrested on a 
warrant and removed to Colesville, amid the jeers of the people 
in attendance. Knight was subpoenaed to tell about the miracle 
performed on him, and Smith's old character of a money-digger 
was ventilated; but the court found nothing on which to hold him. 
Mormon writers have dilated on these " persecutions," but the out- 
come of the hearings indicated fair treatment of the accused by 
the arbiters of the law, and the indignation shown toward him and 
his associates by their neighbors was not greater than the conduct 
of such men in assuming priestly rights might evoke in any similar 
community. 

Smith returned to his home in Pennsylvania after this, and 
endeavored to secure the cooperation of his father-in-law in his 
church plans, but without avail. It was four years later that Mr. 
Hale put on record his opinion of his son-in-law already quoted. 
Failing to find other support in Harmony, and perceiving much 
public feeling against him, Smith prepared for his return to New 
York by receiving a "revelation " (Sec. 24), which directed him to 
return to the churches organized in that state after he had sold 
his crops. "They shall support thee," declared the "revelation"; 
"but if they receive thee not, I will send upon them a cursing 
instead of a blessing." For Smith's protection the Lord further 
declared : " Whosoever shall lay their hand upon you by violence 
ye shall command to be smitten in my name, and behold, I will 
smite them according to your words, in mine own due time. And 
whosoever shall go to law with thee shall be cursed by the law." 
This threat, it will be noted, was safeguarded by not requiring 
immediate fulfilment. 

Smith returned to Fayette in September, and continued church 
work thereabouts in company with his brothers and John and 
David Whitmer. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 



105 



Meanwhile Parley P. Pratt had made his visit to Palmyra and 
returned to Ohio, and in the early winter Rigdon set out to make 
his first open visit to Smith, arriving in December. Martin 
Harris, on the ground that Rigdon was a regularly authorized 
clergyman, tried to obtain the use of one of the churches of the 
town for him, but had to content himself with the third-story hall 
of the Young Men's Association. There Rigdon preached a 
sermon to a small audience, principally of non-Mormons, announc- 
ing himself as "a messenger of God." The audience regarded 
the sermon as blasphemous, and no further attempt was made to 
secure this room for Mormon meetings. Rigdon, however, while 
in conference with Smith, preached and baptized in the neighbor- 
hood, and Smith and Harris tried their powers as preachers in 
barns and under a tree in the open air. 

A well-authenticated story of the manner in which one of the 
Palmyra Mormons received his call to preach is told by Tucker 1 
and verified by the principal actor. Among the first baptized in 
New York State were Calvin Stoddard and his wife (Smith's 
sister) of Macedon. Stoddard told his neighbors of wonderful 
things he had seen in the sky, and about his duty to preach. 
One night Steven S. Harding, a young man who was visiting the 
place, went with a companion to Stoddard's house, and awakening 
him with knocks on the door, proclaimed in measured tones that 
the angel of the Lord commanded him to " go forth among the 
people and preach the Gospel of Nephi." Then they ran home 
and went to bed. Stoddard took the call in all earnestness, and 
went about the next day repeating to his neighbors the words of 
the " celestial messenger," describing the roaring thunder and the 
musical sounds of the angel's wings that accompanied the words. 
Young Harding, who participated in this joke, became Governor 
of Utah in 1S62. and incurred the bitter enmity of Brigham Young 
and the church by denouncing polygamy, and asserting his own 
civil authority. 2 

As a result of Smith's and Rigdon's conferences came a 
"revelation" to them both (Sec. 35), delivered as in the name 

1 " Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," pp. 80, 285. 

2 Stoddard and Smith had a quarrel over a lot in Kirtland in 1835, an ^ Smith 
knocked down his brother-in-law and was indicted for assault and battery, but was 
acquitted on the ground of self-defence. 



io6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



of Jesus Christ, defining somewhat Rigdon's position. How 
nearly it met his demands cannot be learned, but it certainly 
granted him no more authority than Smith was willing to concede. 
It told him that he should do great things, conferring the Holy 
Ghost by the laying on of hands, as did the apostles of old, and 
promising to show miracles, signs, and wonders unto all believers. 
He was told that Joseph had received the " keys of the mysteries 
of those things that have been sealed," and was directed to 
" watch over him that his faith fail not." This " revelation " 
ordered the retranslation of the Scriptures. 

The most important result of Rigdon's visit to Smith was a 
decision to move the church to Ohio. This decision was promul- 
gated in the form of " revelations." dated December, 1830, and 
January, 1831, which set forth (Sees. 37, 38): — 

"And that ye might escape the power of the enemy, and be gathered unto 
me a righteous people, without spot and blameless : 

" Wherefore, for this cause I give unto you the commandment that ye 
should go to the Ohio ; and there I will give unto you my law ; and there you shall 
be endowed with power from on high ; and from thence whomsoever I will shall go 
forth among all nations, and it shall be told them what they shall do ; for I have 
a great work laid up in store, for Israel shall be saved. . . . And they that have 
farms that cannot be sold, let them be left or rented as seemeth them good." 

A sufficient reason for the removal was the failure to secure 
converts where Smith was known, and the ready acceptance of 
the new belief among Rigdon's Ohio people. The Rev. Dr. 
Clark says, " You might as well go down in the crater of Vesu- 
vius and attempt to build an icehouse amid its molten and boiling 
lava, as to convince any inffebitant in either of these towns [Pal- 
myra or Manchester] that Joe Smith's pretensions are not the 
most gross and egregious falsehood." 1 

The Rev. Jesse Townsend of Palmyra, in a reply to a letter 
of inquiry about the Mormons, dated December 24, 1833 (quoted 
in full by Tucker), says : " All the Mormons have left this part 
of the state, and so palpable is their imposture that nothing is 
here said or thought of the subject, except when inquiries from 
abroad are occasionally made concerning them. I know of no 
one now living in this section of the country that ever gave them 
credence." 

1 " Gleanings by the Way." 



CHAPTER XIII 



THE MORMONS' BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES — CHURCH 
GOVERNMENT 

The Mormons teach that, for fourteen hundred years to the 
time of Smith's " revelations," there had been " a general and 
awful apostasy from the religion of the New Testament, so that 
all the known world have been left for centuries without the Church 
of Christ among them ; without a priesthood authorized of God to 
administer ordinances; that every one of the churches has per- 
verted the Gospel." 1 As illustrations of this perversion are cited 
the doing away of immersion for the remission of sins by most 
churches, of the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
and of the miraculous gifts and powers of the Holy Spirit. The 
new church presented a modern prophet, who was in direct com- 
munication with God and possessed power to work miracles, and 
who taught from a Golden Bible which says that whoever asserts 
that there are no longer "revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, 
nor healing, nor speaking with tongues and the interpretation of 
tongues, . . . knoweth not the Gospel of Christ " (Book of Mor- 
mon ix. 7, 8). 

It is impossible to decide whether .the name "Mormon" was 
used by Spaulding in his " Manuscript Found," or was introduced 
by Rigdon. It is first encountered in the Mormon Bible in the 
Book of Mosiah xviii. 4, as the name of a place where there 
was a fountain in which Alma baptized those whom his admoni- 
tion led to repentance. Next it occurs in 3 Nephi v. 20 : "I 
am Mormon, and a pure descendant of Lehi." This Mormon was 
selected by the " author " of the Bible to stand sponsor for the 
condensation of the " records " of his ancestors which Smith un- 
earthed. It was discovered very soon after the organization of 
the Mormon church was announced that the word was of Greek 

1 Orson Pratt's " Remarkable Visions," No. 6. 
107 



io8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



derivation, fMop/juco or fiop/jLcov, meaning bugbear, hobgoblin. In 
the form of "mormo" it is Anglicized with the same meaning, and 
is used by Jeremy Collier and Warburton. 1 The word " Mormon " 
in zoology is the generic name of certain animals, including the 
mandril baboon. The discovery of the Greek origin and mean- 
ing of the word was not pleasing to the early Mormon leaders, and 
they printed in the Times and Seasons a letter over Smith's signa- 
ture, in which he solemnly declared that " there was no Greek or 
Latin upon the plates from which I, through the grace of God, 
translated the Book of Mormon," and gave the following explana- 
tion of the derivation of the word : — 

" Before I give a definition to the word, let me say that the Bible, in its widest 
sense, means good ; for the Saviour says, according to the Gospel of St. John, 
* I am the Good Shepherd 1 ; and it will not be beyond the common use of terms 
to say that good is amongst the most important in use, and, though known by 
various names in different languages, still its meaning is the same, and is ever in 
opposition to bad. We say from the Saxon, \good; the Dane, god; the Goth, 
go da ; the German, gut ; the Dutch, goed ; the Latin, bonus ; the Greek, kotos ; 
the Hebrew, tob ; the Egyptian, mo. Hence, with the addition of more, or the 
contraction mor, we have the word Mormon, which means literally more good.' 1 '' 

This lucid explanation was doubtless entirely satisfactory to 
the persons to whom it was addressed. 

In the early "revelations" collected in the "Book of Com- 
mandments " the new church was not styled anything more defi- 
nite than " My Church," and the title-page of that book, as printed 
in 1833, says that these instructions are "for the government of 
the Church of Christ." The name " Mormons " was not acceptable 
to the early followers of Smith, who looked on it as a term of re- 
proach, claiming the designation "Saints." This objection to the 
title continues to the present day. It was not until May 4, 1834, 
that a council of the church, on motion of Sidney Rigdon, decided 
on its present official title, " Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day 
Saints." 

The belief in the speedy ending of the world, on which the title 
" Latter-Day Saints " was founded, has played so unimportant a 
part in modern Mormon belief that its prominence as an early tenet 
of the church is generally overlooked. At no time was there more 
widespread interest in the speedy second coming of Christ and the 

1 See " Century Dictionary." 



BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES — CHURCH GOVERNMENT 109 



Day of Judgment than during the years when the organization of 
the Mormon church was taking place. We have seen how much 
attention was given to a speedy millennium by the Disciples preach- 
ers. It was in 1833 that William Miller began his sermons in which 
he fixed on the year 1843 as the end of the world, and his views 
not only found acceptance among his personal followers, but 
attracted the liveliest interest in other sects. 

The Mormon leaders made this belief a part of their early doc- 
trine. Thus, in one of the first "revelations" given out by Smith, 
dated Fayette, New York, September, 1830, Christ is represented 
as saying that " the hour is nigh " when He would reveal Himself, 
and " dwell in righteousness with men on earth a thousand years." 
In the November following, another " revelation " declared that 
" the time is soon at hand that I shall come in a cloud, with power 
and great glory." Soon after Smith arrived in Kirtland a " revela- 
tion," dated February, 183 1, announced that "the great day of the 
Lord is nigh at hand." In January, 1833, Smith predicted that 
" there are those now living upon the earth whose eyes shall not be 
closed in death until they shall see all these things of which I have 
spoken " (the sweeping of the wicked from the United States, and 
the return of the lost tribes to it). Smith declared in 1843 that the 
Lord had promised that he should see the Son of Man if he lived 
to be eighty-five (Sec. 130). 1 When Ferris was Secretary of Utah 
Territory, in 1 852—1853, he found that the Mormons were still 
expecting the speedy coming of Christ, but had moved the date 
forward to 1 870. All through Smith's autobiography and the 
Millennial Star will be found mention of every portent that, might 
be construed as an indication of the coming disruption of this world. 
As late as December 6, 1856, an editorial in the Millennial Star 
said, "The signs of the times clearly indicate to every observing 
mind that the great day of the second advent of Messiah is at 
hand." 

As the devout Mohammedan 2 passes from earth to a heaven of 

1 Speaking of W. W. Phelps's last years in Utah, Stenhouse says : " Often did the 
old man, in public and in private, regale the Saints with the assurance that he had the 
promise by revelation that he should not taste of death until Jesus came." Phelps died 
on March 7, 1872. 

2 The similarity between Smith's early life and visions and Mohammed's has been 
mentioned by more than one writer. Stenhouse observes that Smith's mother "was to 
him what Cadijah was to Mohammed," and that " a Mohammedan writer, in a series of 



110 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



material bliss, so the Mormons are taught that the Saints, the sole 
survivors of the day of judgment, will, with resurrected bodies, 
possess the purified earth. The lengths to which Mormon preach- 
ers have dared to go in illustrating this view find a good illustra- 
tion in a sermon by Orson Pratt, printed in the Deseret News, Salt 
Lake City, of August 21, 1852. Having promised that "farmers 
will have great farms upon the earth when it is so changed," and 
foreseeing that some one might suggest a difficulty in providing 
land enough to go round, he met that in this way : — 

" But don't be so fast, says one ; don't you know that there are only about 
197,000,000 of square miles, or about 126,000,000,000 of acres upon the surface 
of the globe ? Will these accommodate all the inhabitants after the resurrection? 
Yes ; for if the earth should stand 8000 years, or 80 centuries, and the popula- 
tion should be a thousand millions in every century, that would be 80,000,- 
000,000 of inhabitants, and we know that many centuries have passed that would 
not give the tenth part of this ; but supposing this to be the number, there would 
then be over an acre and a half for each person upon the surface of the globe." 

By eliminating the wicked, so that only one out of a hundred 
would share this real estate, he calculated that every Saint 
"would receive over 150 acres, which would be quite enough to 
raise manna, flax to make robes of, and to have beautiful orchards 
of fruit trees." 

The Mormon belief is stated by the church leaders to rest on 
the Holy Bible, the Mormon Bible, and the " Book of Doctrine and 
Covenants," together with the teachings of the Mormon instructors 
from Smith's time to the present day. Although the Holy Bible is 
named first in this list, it has, as we have seen, played a secondary 
part in the church ritual, its principal use by the Mormon preach- 
ers having been to furnish quotations on which to rest their claims 
for the inspiration of their own Bible and for their peculiar teach- 
ings. Mormon sermons (usually styled discourses) rarely, if ever, 
begin with a text. The "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" "con- 
taining," as the title-page declares, "the revelations given to 
Joseph Smith, Jr., for the building up of the Kingdom of God in 
the last days," was the directing authority in the church during 
Smith's life, and still occupies a large place in the church history. 
An examination of the origin and character of this work will there- 
essays recently published in London, treats of the prophecies concerning the Arabian 
Prophet, to be found in the Old and New Testaments, precisely as Orson Pratt applied 
them to the American Prophet." 



BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES — CHURCH GOVERNMENT III 



fore shed much light on the claims of the church to special direc- 
tion from on high. 

There is little doubt that this system of "revelation " was an 
idea of Rigdon. Smith was not, at that time, an inventor ; his 
forte was making use of ideas conveyed to him. Thus, he did not 
originate the idea of using a " peek-stone," but used one freely as 
soon as he heard of it. He did not conceive the idea of receiving 
a Bible from an angel, but readily transformed the Spaniard-with- 
his-throat-cut to an angel when the perfected scheme was pre- 
sented to him. We can imagine how attractive "revelations" 
would have been to him, and how soon he would concentrate in 
himself the power to receive them, and would adapt them to his 
personal use. 

David Whitmer says, "The revelations, or the Book of Com- 
mandments, up to June, 1829, were given through the stone 
through which the Book of Mormon was translated " ; but that 
after that time " they came through Joseph as a mouthpiece ; that 
is, he would inquire of the Lord, pray and ask concerning a matter, 
and speak out the revelation, which he thought to be a revelation 
from the Lord ; but sometimes he was mistaken about its being 
from the Lord." 1 Who drew the line between truth and error has 
never been explained, but Smith would certainly have resented any 
such scepticism. 

Parley P. Pratt thus describes Smith's manner of receiving 
" revelations " in Ohio, " Each sentence was uttered slowly and 
very distinctly, and with a pause between each sufficiently long for 
it to be recorded by an ordinary writer in long hand." 2 

These " revelations " made the greatest impression on Smith's 
followers, and no other of his pretensions seems to have so con- 
vinced them of his divine credentials. The story of Vienna Jaques 
well illustrates this. A Yankee descendant of John Rodgers, living 
in Boston, she was convinced by a Mormon elder, and joined the 
church members while they were in Kirtland, taking with her her 
entire possession, Si 500 in cash. This money, like that of many 
other devoted members, found its way into Smith's hands — and 
stayed there. But he had taken her into his family, and her sup- 
port became burdensome to him. So, when the Saints were " gath- 

1 " Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon." 
3 Pratt's Autobiography," p. 65. 



112 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



ering " in Missouri, he announced a " revelation " in these words 
(Sec. 90) : — 

" And again, verily, I [the Lord] say unto you, it is my will that my hand- 
maid, Vienna Jaques, should receive money to bear her expenses, and go up 
unto the land of Zion ; and the residue of the money may be consecrated unto 
me, and she be rewarded in mine own due time. Verily, I say unto you, that it 
is meet in mine eyes that she should go up unto the land of Zion, and receive an 
inheritance from the hand of the Bishop, that she may settle down in peace, inas- 
much as she is faithful, and not to be idle in her days from thenceforth." 

The confiding woman obeyed without a murmur this thinly 
concealed scheme to get rid of her, migrated with the church 
from Missouri to Illinois and to Utah, and was in Salt Lake City 
in 1833, supporting herself as a nurse, and "doubly proud that 
she has been made the subject of a revelation from heaven." 1 

These " revelations " have been published under two titles. 
The first edition was printed in Jackson, Missouri, in 1833, in the 
Mormon printing establishment, under the title, " Book of Com- 
mandments for the Government of the Church of Christ, organ- 
ized according to Law on the 6th of April, 1830." This edition 
contained nothing but "revelations," divided into sixty-five "chap- 
ters," and ending with the one dated Kirtland, September, 183 1, 
which forms Section 64 of the Utah edition of " Doctrine and 
Covenants." David Whitmer says that when, in the spring of 
1832, it was proposed by Smith, Rigdon, and others to publish 
these revelations, they were earnestly advised by other members 
of the church not to do so, as it would be dangerous to let the 
world get hold of them ; and so it proved. But Smith declared 
that any objector should " have his part taken out of the Tree of 
Life." 2 

Two years later, while the church was still in Kirtland, the 
" revelations " were again prepared for publication, this time 
under the title, " Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the 
Latter-Day Saints, carefully selected from the revelations of God, 
and compiled by Joseph Smith, Jr. ; Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rig- 

1 "Utah and the Mormons," p. 182. 

2 It has been stated that the "Book of Commandments " was never really published, 
the mob destroying the sheets before it got out. But David Whitmer is a very positive 
witness to the contrary, saying, " I say it was printed complete (and copyrighted) and 
many copies distributed among the members of the church before the printing press was 
destroyed." 



BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES — CHURCH GOVERNMENT 113 



don, F. G. Williams, proprietors." On August 17, 1835, a general 
assembly of the church held in the Kirtland Temple voted to accept 
this book as the doctrine and covenants of their faith. Ebenezer 
Robinson, who attended the meeting, says that the majority of 
those so voting " had neither time nor opportunity to examine 
the book for themselves ; they had no means of knowing whether 
any alterations had been made in any of the revelations or not." 1 
In fact, many important alterations were so made, as will be 
pointed out in the course of this story. One method of attempt- 
ing to account for these changes has been by making the plea 
that parts were omitted in the Missouri editions. On this point, 
however, Whitmer is very positive, as quoted. 

At the very start Smith's revelations failed to "come true." 
An amusing instance of this occurred before the Mormon Bible 
was published. While the "copy" was in the hands of the 
printer, Grandin, Joe's brother Hyrum and others who had be- 
come interested in the enterprise became impatient over Harris's 
delay in raising the money required for bringing out the book. 
Hyrum finally proposed that some of them attempt to sell the 
copyright in Canada, and he urged Joe to ask the Lord about 
doing so. Joe complied, and announced that the mission to Can- 
ada would be^a success. Accordingly, Oliver Cowdery and Hiram 
Page made sC trip to Toronto to secure a publisher, but their mis- 
sion failed absolutely. This was a critical test of the faith of 
Joe's followers. "We were all in great trouble," says David 
Whitmer, 2 " and we asked Joseph how it was that he received a 
revelation from the Lord for some brethren to go to Toronto and 
sell the copyright, and the brethren had utterly failed in their 
undertaking. Joseph did not know how it was, so he inquired of 
the Lord about it, and behold, the following ' revelation ' came 
through the stone : 1 Some revelations are from God, some revela- 
tions are of man, and some revelations are of the Devil' " No rule 
for distinguishing and separating these revelations was given ; 
but Whitmer, whose faith in Smith's divine mission never cooled, 
thus disposes of the matter, " So we see that the revelation to go 
to Toronto and sell the copyright was not of God." Of course, a 
prophet whose followers would accept such an excuse was certain 

1 In his reminiscences in The Return. 

2 " Address to All Believers in Christ," p. 30. 

I 



114 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



of his hold upon them. This incident well illustrates the kind of 
material which formed the nucleus of the church. 

Smith never let the previously revealed word of the Lord pro- 
tect any of his flock who afterward came in conflict with his own 
plans. For example: On March 8, 183 1, he announced a " reve- 
lation " (Sec. 47), saying, " Behold, it is expedient in me that my 
servant John [Whitmer] should write and keep a regular history " 
of the church. John fell into disfavor in later years, and, when he 
refused to give up his records, Smith and Rigdon addressed a 
letter to him, 1 in connection with his dismissal, which said that 
his notes required correction by them before publication, " know- 
ing your incompetency as a historian, that writings coming from 
your pen could not be put to press without our correcting them, 
or else the church must suffer reproach. Indeed, sir, we never 
supposed you capable of writing a history." Why the Lord did 
not consult Smith and Rigdon before making this appointment is 
one of the unexplained mysteries. 

These " revelations," which increased in number from 16 in 
1829 to 19 in 1830, numbered 35 in 1831, and then decreased to 16 
in 1832, 13 in 1833, 5 in 1834, 2 in 1835, 3 in 1836, 1 in 1837, 8 
in 1838 (in the trying times in Missouri), 1 in 1839, none in 1840, 
3 in 1 84 1, none in 1842, and 2, including the one on polyg- 
amy, in 1843. We shall see that in his latter days, in Nauvoo, 
Smith was allowed to issue revelations only after they had been 
censored by a council. He himself testified to the reckless use 
which he made of them, and which perhaps brought about this 
action. The following is a quotation from his diary : — 

"May 19, 1842. — While the election [of Smith as mayor by the city coun- 
cil] was going forward, I received and wrote the following revelation : i Verily 
thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, by the voice of the Spirit, Hiram 
Kimball has been insinuating evil and forming evil opinions against you with 
others ; and if he continue in them, he and they shall be accursed, for I am the 
Lord thy God, and will stand by thee and bless thee. 1 Which I threw across the 
room to Hiram Kimball, one of the counsellors." 

Thus it seems that there was some limit to the extent of Joe's 
effrontery which could be submitted to. 

We shall see that Brigham Young in Utah successfully resisted 
constant pressure that was put upon him by his flock to continue 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 133. 



BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES — CHURCH GOVERNMENT 115 



the reception of "revelations." While he was prudent enough to 
avoid the pitfalls that would have surrounded him as a revealer, 
he was crafty enough not to belittle his own authority in so doing. 
In his discourse on the occasion of the open announcement of 
polygamy, he said, " If an apostle magnifies his calling, his words 
are the words of eternal life and salvation to those who hearken 
to them, just as much so as any written revelations contained in 
these books " (the two Bibles and the " Doctrine and Covenants "). 

Hiram Page was not the only person who tried to imitate 
Smith's "revelations." A boy named Isaac Russell gave out 
such messages at Kirtland ; Gladdin Bishop caused much trouble 
in the same way at Nauvoo ; the High Council withdrew the hand 
of fellowship from Oliver Olney for setting himself up as a prophet; 
and in the same year the Times and Seasons announced a pam- 
phlet by J. C. Brewster, purporting to be one of the lost books of 
Esdras, " written by the power of God." 

In the Times and Seasons (p. 309) will he found a report of a 
conference held in New York City on December 4, 1840, at which 
Elder Sydney Roberts was arraigned, charged with "having a 
revelation that a certain brother must give him a suit of clothes 
and a gold watch, the best that could be had ; also saluting the 
sisters with what he calls a holy kiss." He was told that he could 
retain his membership if he would confess, but he declared that 
"he knew the revelations which he had spoken were from God." 
So he was thereupon " cut off." 

The other source of Mormon belief — the teachings of their 
leading men — has been no more consistent nor infallible than 
Smith's " revelations." Mormon preachers have been generally 
uneducated men, most of them ambitious of power, and ready to 
use the pulpit to strengthen their own positions. Many an indi- 
vidual elder, firm in his faith, has travelled and toiled as faithfully 
as any Christian missionary ; but these men, while they have added 
to the church membership, have not made its beliefs. 

Smith probably originated very little of the church polity, ex- 
cept the doctrine of polygamy, and what is published over his 
name is generally the production of some of his counsellors. Sec- 
tion 130 of the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," headed "Im- 
portant Items of Instruction, given by Joseph the Prophet, April 
2, 1843," contains the following: — 



Ii6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" When the Saviour shall appear, we shall see him as he is. We shall see 
that he is a man like ourselves. . . . 

" The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's ; the Son 
also ; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage 
of spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.' 1 

An article in the Millennial Star, Vol. VI, for which the prophet 
vouched, contains the following: — 

" The weakest child of God which now exists upon the earth will possess 
more dominion, more property, more subjects, and more power in glory than is 
possessed by Jesus Christ or by his Father ; while, at the same time, Jesus Christ 
and his Father will have their dominion, kingdom and subjects increased in 
proportion." 

One more illustration of Smith's doctrinal views will suffice. 
In a funeral sermon preached in Nauvoo, March 20, 1842, he 
said : " As concerning the resurrection, I will merely say that all 
men will come from the grave as they lie down, whether old or 
young; there will not be ' added unto their stature one cubit,' 
neither taken from it. All will be raised by the power of God, 
having spirit in their bodies but not blood." 1 

In " The Latter-Day Saints' Catechism or Child's Ladder," 
by Elder David Moffat, Genesis v. 1, and Exodus xxxiii. 22, 23, 
and xxiv. 10 are cited to prove that God has the form and parts 
of a man. 

The greatest vagaries of doctrinal teachings are found during 
Brigham Young's reign in Utah. In the way of a curiosity the 
following diagram and its explanation, by Orson Hyde, may be 
reproduced from the Millennial Star, Vol. IX, p. 23: — 

"The above diagram shows the order and unity of the Kingdom of God. 
The eternal Father sits at the head, crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 
Wherever the other lines meet there sits a king and priest under God, bearing 
rule, authority and dominion under the Father. He is one with the Father, 
because his Kingdom is joined to his Father's and becomes part of it. . . . It 
will be seen by the above diagram that there are kingdoms of all sizes, an 
infinite variety to suit all grades of merit and ability. The chosen vessels of 
God are the kings and priests that are placed at the heads of their kingdoms. 
They have received their washings and anointings in the Temple of God on 
earth." 

Young's ambition was not to be satisfied until his name was 
connected with some doctrine peculiarly his own. Accordingly, 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, p. 213. 



A DIAGRAM OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 




The above diagram shows the order and unity of the kingdom of God. The 
eternal Father sits at the head, crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. Where- 
ever the other lines meet, there sits a king and a priest unto God, bearing rule, 
authority, and dominion under the Father. He is one with the-Father, because 
his kingdom is joined to his Father's and becomes part of it. 

The most eminent and distinguished prophets who have laid down their lives for 
their testimony (Jesus among the rest), will be crowned at the head of the largest 
kingdoms under the Father, and will be one with Christ as Christ is one with his 
Father; for their kingdoms are all joined together, and such as do the will of the 
Father, the same are his mothers, sisters, and brothers. He that has bcpn faithfwl 



BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES — CHURCH GOVERNMENT 117 



in a long sermon preached in the Tabernacle on April 9, 1852, he 
made this announcement (the italics and capitals follow the official 
report) : — 

"Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, saint and sinner. 
When our father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a 
celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make 
and organize this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days, 
about whom holy men have written and spoken. 1 He is our Father and our 
God, and the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon the earth, 
professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it and will know it sooner or 
later. ... I could tell you much more about this ; but were I to tell you the 
whole truth, blasphemy would be nothing to it, in the estimation of the super- 
stitious and over righteous of mankind. . . . Jesus, our Elder Brother, was 
begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the Garden of Eden, and 
who is our Father in heaven. 1 ' 2 

This doctrine was made a leading point of difference between 
the Utah church and the Reorganized Church, when the latter was 
organized, but it is no longer defended even in Utah. The Deseret 
Evening News of March 21, 1900, said on this point, "That 
which President Young set forth in the discourse referred to is not 
preached either to the Latter-Day Saints or to the world as a part 
of the creed of the church." 

Young never hesitated to rebuke an associate whose preaching 
did not suit him. In a discourse in Salt Lake City, on March 8, 
1857, he rebuked Orson Pratt, one of the ablest of the church 
writers, declaring that Pratt did not " know enough to keep his 
foot out of it, but drowns himself in his philosophy." He ridiculed 
his doctrine that "the devils in hell are composed of and filled 
with the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, and possess all the knowl- 
edge, wisdom, and power of the gods," and said, " When I read 
some of the writings of such philosophers they make me think, 
1 O dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got.' " 3 

The Mormon church still holds that an existing head of that 
organization can always interpret the divine will regarding any 
question. This was never more strikingly illustrated than when 
Woodruff, by a mere dictum, did away with the obligatory char- 
acter of polygamy. 

1 Young, in a public discourse on October 23, 1853, declared that he rejected the 
story of Adam's creation as "baby stories my mother taught me when I was a child." 
But the Mormon Bible (2 Nephi ii. 18-22) tells the story of Adam's fall. 

2 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, pp. 50, 51. 3 Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 297. 



n8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



When the Mormons were under a cloud in Illinois, in 1842, 
John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, applied to Smith 
for a statement of their belief, and received in reply a list of 13 
" Articles of Faith " over Smith's signature. This statement was 
intended to win for them sympathy as martyrs to a simple religious 
belief, and it has been cited in Congress as proof of their soul 
purity. But as illustrating the polity of the church it is quite 
valueless. 

The doctrine of polygamy and the ceremonies of the Endow- 
ment House will be considered in their proper place. One dis- 
tinctive doctrine of the church must be explained before this 
subject is dismissed, namely, that which calls for "baptism for 
the dead." This doctrine is founded on an interpretation of 
1 Corinthians xv. 29 : " Else what shall they do which are 
baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all ? Why are they 
then baptized for the dead ? " 

An explanation of this doctrine in the Times and Seasons of 
May 1, 1 841, says : — 

" This text teaches us the important and cheering truth that the departed 
spirit is in a probationary state, and capable of being affected by the proclama- 
tion of the Gospel. . . . Christ offers pardon, peace, holiness, and eternal life to 
the quick and the dead, — the living, on condition of faith and baptism for re- 
mission of sins ; the departed, on the same condition of faith in person and 
baptism by a living kinsman in his behalf. It may be asked, will this baptism 
by proxy necessarily save the dead? We answer, no; neither will the same 
necessarily save the living." 

This doctrine was first taught to the church in Ohio. In later 
years, in Nauvoo, Smith seemed willing to accept its paternity, 
and in an article in the Times and Seasons of April 15, 1842, signed 
" Ed.," when he was its editor, he said that he was the first to 
point it out. The article shows, however, that it was doubtless 
written by Rigdon, as it indicates a knowledge of the practice of 
such baptism by the Marcionites in the second century, and of 
Chrysostom's explanation of it. A note on 1 Corinthians xv. 29, 
in "The New Testament Commentary for English Readers," 
edited by Lord Bishop Ellicott of Gloucester and Bristol (London, 
1878), gives the following historical sketch of the practice: — 

" There have been numerous and ingenious conjectures as to the meaning of 
this passage. The only tenable interpretation is that there existed amongst 



BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES — CHURCH GOVERNMENT 119 



some of the Christians at Corinth a practice of baptizing a living person in the 
stead of some convert who had died before that sacrament had been administered 
to him. Such a practice existed amongst the Marcionites in the second century, 
and still earlier amongst a sect called the Cerinthians. The idea evidently was 
that, whatever benefit flowed from baptism, might be thus vicariously secured 
for the deceased Christian. St. Chrysostom gives the following description of 
it : ' After a catechumen (one prepared for baptism but not actually baptized) 
was dead, they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased ; then, coming 
to the bed of the dead man, they spoke to him, and asked whether he would 
receive baptism ; and, he making no answer, the other replied in his stead, and 
so they baptized the living for the dead. 1 Does St. Paul then, by what he here 
says, sanction the superstitious practice ? Certainly not. He carefully sepa- 
rated himself and the Corinthians, to whom he immediately addresses himself, 
from those who adopted this custom. . . . Those who do that, and disbelieve a 
resurrection, refute themselves. This custom possibly sprang up among the 
Jewish converts, who had been accustomed to something similar in their faith. 
If a Jew died without having been purified from some ceremonial uncleanness, 
some living person had the necessary ablution performed on him, and the dead 
were so accounted clean. 1 ' 

Other commentators have found means to explain this text 
without giving it reference to a baptism for dead persons, as, for 
instance, that it means, " with an interest in the resurrection of the 
dead." 1 Another explanation is that by "the dead" is meant the 
dead Christ, as referred to in Romans vi. 3, " Know ye not that 
so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized 
into his death ? " 

This doctrine was a very taking one with the uneducated Mor- 
mon converts who crowded into Nauvoo, and the church officers 
saw in it a means to hasten the work on the Temple. At first 
families would meet on the bank of the Mississippi River, and 
some one, of the order of the Melchisedec Priesthood, would bap- 
tize them wholesale for all their dead relatives whose names they 
could remember, each sex for relatives of the same. But as soon 
as the font in the Temple was ready for use, these baptisms were 
restricted to that edifice, and it was required that all the baptized 
should have paid their tithings. At a conference at Nauvoo in 
October, 1841, Smith said that those who neglected the baptism of 
their dead " did it at the peril of their own salvation." 2 

The form of church government, as worked out in the early days, 
is set forth in the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants." The first 

1 "Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy of the Anglican Church." 

2 Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 578. 



120 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



officers provided for were the twelve apostles, 1 and the next the 
elders, priests, teachers, and deacons, Edward Partridge being 
announced as the first bishop in 183 1. The church was loosely- 
governed for the first years after its establishment at Kirtland. A 
guiding power was provided for in a revelation of March 8, 1833 
(Sec. 90), when Smith was told by the Lord that Rigdon and 
F. G. Williams were accounted as equal with him " in holding the 
keys of this last kingdom." These three first held the famous office 
of the First Presidency, representing the Trinity. 

On February 17, 1834 (Sec. 102), a General High Council of 
twenty-four High Priests assembled at Smith's house in Kirtland 
and organized the High Council of the church, consisting of Twelve 
High Priests, with one or three Presidents, as the case might re- 
quire. The office of High Priest, and the organization of a High 
Council were apparently an afterthought, and were added to the 
" revelation " after its publication in the " Book of Commandments." 
Other forms of organization that were from time to time decided 
on were announced in a revelation dated March 28, 1835 (Sec. 107), 
which defined the two priesthoods, Melchisedec and Aaronic, and 
their powers. There were to be three Presiding High Priests to 
form a Quorum of the Presidency of the church ; a Seventy, called 
to preach the Gospel, who would form a Quorum equal in authority 
to the Quorum of the Twelve, and be presided over by seven of their 
number. Smith soon organized two of these Quorums of Seventies. 
At the time of the dedications of the Temple at Nauvoo, in 1844, 
there were fifteen of them, and to-day they number more than 120. 

Each separate church organization, as formed, was called a 
Stake, and each Stake had over it a Presidency, High Priests, and 
Council of Twelve. We find the meaning of the word " Stake " in 
some of Smith's earlier " revelations." Thus, in the one dated 
June 4, 1833, regarding the organization of the church at Kirtland, 
it was said, " It is expedient in me that this Stake that I have set 
for the strength of Zion be made strong." Again, in one dated 
December 16, 1839, on the gathering of the Saints, it is stated, "I 
have other places which I will appoint unto them, and they shall 
be called Stakes for the curtains, or the strength of Zion." In Utah, 
to-day, the Stakes form groups of settlements, and are generally 
organized on county lines. 

1 (Sec. 18, June, 1829.) 



BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES — CHURCH GOVERNMENT 121 



The prophet made a substantial provision for his father, found- 
ing for him the office of Patriarch, in accordance with an unpub- 
lished " revelation." The principal business of the Patriarch was 
to dispense ''blessings," which were regarded by the faithful as a 
sort of charm, to ward off misfortune. Joseph, Sr., awarded these 
blessings without charge when he began dispensing them at Kirt- 
land, but* a High Council held there in 1835 allowed him $10 a, 
week while blessing the church. After his formal anointing in 
1836 he was known as Father Smith, and the next year his salary 
was made $1.50 a day. 1 Hyrum became Patriarch when his 
father died in 1840, his brother William succeeded him, his Uncle 
John came next, and his Uncle Joseph after John. Patriarchal 
blessings were advertised in the Mormon newspaper in Nauvoo like 
other merchandise. They could be obtained in writing, and con- 
tained promises of almost anything that a man could wish, such as 
freedom from poverty and disease, life prolonged until the coming 
of Christ, etc. 2 In 1875 the price of a blessing in Utah had risen 
to $2. The office of Patriarch is still continued, with one chief 
Patriarch, known as Patriarch of the Church, and subordinate Patri- 
archs in the different Stakes. The position of Patriarch of the 
church has always been regarded as a hereditary one, and bestowed 
on some member of the Smith family, as it is to-day. 

1 The departure of the Patriarch from Ohio was somewhat dramatic. As his wife 
tells the story in her book, the old man was taken by a constable before a justice of the 
peace on a charge of performing the marriage service without any authority, and was 
fined $3000, and sentenced to the penitentiary in default of payment. Through the 
connivance of the constable, who had been a Mormon, the prisoner was allowed to leap 
out of a window, and he remained in hiding at New Portage until his family were ready 
to start for Missouri. The revelation of January 19, 1 84 1, announced that he was then 
sitting "with Abraham at his right hand." 

2 Ferris's "Utah and the Mormons," p. 314, and "Wife No. 19," p. 581. 



BOOK II 

IN OHIO 



CHAPTER I 

THE FIRST CONVERTS AT KIRTLAND 

The four missionaries who had been sent to Ohio under Cow- 
dery's leadership arrived there in October, 1830. Rigdon left Kirt- 
land on his visit to Smith in New York State in the December 
following, and in January, 183 1, he returned to Ohio, taking Smith 
with him. 

The party who set out for Ohio, ostensibly to preach to the 
Lamanites, consisted of Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter 
Whitmer, Jr., and Ziba Peterson, the latter one of Smith's original 
converts, who, it may be noted, was deprived of his land and made 
to work for others a year later in Missouri, because of offences 
against the church authorities. These men preached as they jour- 
neyed, making a brief stop at Buffalo to instruct the Indians there. 
On reaching Ohio, Pratt's acquaintance with Rigdon's Disciples 
gave him an opportunity to bring the new Bible to the attention of 
many people. The character of the Smiths was quite unknown to 
the pioneer settlers, and the story of the miraculously delivered 
Bible filled many of them with wonder rather than with unbelief. 

The missionaries began the work of organizing a church at 
once. Some members of Rigdon's congregation had already formed 
a " common stock society," and were believers in a speedy millen- 
nium, and to these the word brought by the new-comers was espe- 
cially welcome. Cowdery baptized seventeen persons into the new 
church. Rigdon at the start denied his right to do this, and, in a 
debate between him and the missionaries which followed at Rig- 
don's house, Rigdon quoted Scripture to prove that, even if they 
had seen an angel, as they declared, it might have been Satan 

122 



THE FIRST CONVERTS AT KIRTLAND 



123 



transformed. Cowdery asked if he thought that, in response to a 
prayer that God would show him an angel, the Heavenly Father 
would suffer Satan to deceive him. Rigdon replied that if Cow- 
dery made such a request of the Heavenly Father " when He has 
never promised you such a thing, if the devil never had an oppor- 
tunity of deceiving you before, you give him one now." 1 But 
after a brief study of the new book, Rigdon announced that he, too, 
had had a "revelation," declaring to him that Mormonism was 
to be believed. He saw in a vision all the orders of professing 
Christians pass before him, and all were " as corrupt as corruption 
itself," while the heart of the man who brought him the book was 
" as pure as an angel."/ 

The announcement of Rigdon's conversation gave Mormonism 
an advertisement and a support that had a wide effect, and it alarmed 
the orthodox of that part of the country as they had never been 
alarmed before. Referring to it, Hayden says, " The force of this 
shock was like an earthquake when Symonds Ryder, Ezra Booth, and 
many others submitted to the ' New Dispensation.' " Largely 
through his influence, the Mormon church at Kirtland soon num- 
bered more than one hundred members. 

During all that autumn and early winter crowds went to Kirt- 
land to learn about the new religion. On Sundays the roads would 
be thronged with people, some in whatever vehicles they owned, 
some on horseback, and some on foot, all pressing forward to hear 
the expounders of the new Gospel and to learn the particulars of 
the new Bible. Pioneers in a country where there was little to give 
variety to their lives, they were easily influenced by any religious 
excitement, and the announcement of a new Bible and prophet was 
certain to arouse their liveliest interest. They had, indeed, inher- 
ited a tendency to religious enthusiasm, so recently had their parents 
gone through the excitements of the early days of Methodism, or 
of the great revivals of the new West at the beginning of the cen- 
tury, when (to quote one of the descriptions given by Henry Howe) 
more than twenty thousand persons assembled in one vast encamp- 
ment, "hundreds of immortal beings moving to and fro, some 
preaching, some praying for mercy, others praising God. Such 

1 " It seemed to be a part of Rigdon's plan to make such a fight that, when he did 
surrender, the triumph of the cause that had defeated him would be all the more com- 
plete." — Kennedy, " Early Days of Mormonism." 



124 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



was the eagerness of the people to attend, that entire neighborhoods 
were forsaken, and the roads literally crowded by those pressing 
forward on their way to the groves." 1 Any new religious leader 
could then make his influence felt on the Western border. Dylkes, 
the " Leatherwood God," had found it necessary only to announce 
himself as the real Messiah at an Ohio camp-meeting, in 1828, to 
build up a sect on that assumption. Freewill Baptists, Winebren- 
nerians, Disciples, Shakers, and Universalists were urging their 
doctrines and confusing the minds of even the thoughtful with their 
conflicting views. We have seen to what beliefs the preaching of 
the Disciples' evangelists had led the people of the Western Reserve, 
and it did not really require a much broader exercise of faith (or 
credulity) to accept the appearance of a new prophet with a new 
Bible. 

While the main body of converts was made up of persons easily 
susceptible to religious excitement, and accustomed to have their 
opinions on such subjects formed for them, men of education and 
more or less training in theology were found among the early adhe- 
rents to the new belief. It is interesting to see how the minds of 
such men were influenced, and this we are enabled to do from per- 
sonal experiences related by some of them. 

One of these, John Corrill, a man of intelligence, who stayed 
with the church until it was driven out of Missouri, then became a 
member of the Missouri Legislature, and wrote a brief history of 
the church to the year 1839, in this pamphlet answered very clearly 
the question often asked by his friends, " How did you come to 
join the Mormons ? " A copy of the new Bible was given to him by 
Cowdery when the missionaries, on their W estern trip, passed through 
Ashtabula County, Ohio, where he lived. A brief reading con- 
vinced him that it was a mere money-making scheme, and when 
he learned that they had stopped at Kirtland, he did not entertain 
a doubt, that, under Rigdon's criticism, the pretensions of the mis- 
sionaries would be at once laid bare. When, on the contrary, word 
came that Rigdon and the majority of his society had accepted the 
new faith, Corrill asked himself : "What does this mean ? Are Elder 
Rigdon and these men such fools as to be duped by these impos- 
tors ? " After talking the matter over with a neighbor, he decided 
to visit Kirtland, hoping to bring Rigdon home with him, with the 

1 " Historical Collections of the Great West." 



THE FIRST CONVERTS AT KIRTLAND 



125 



idea that he might be saved from the imposition if he could be taken 
from the influence of the impostors. But before he reached Kirt- 
land, Corrill heard of Rigdon's baptism into the new church. Find- 
ing Kirtland in a state of great religious excitement, he sought 
discussions with the leaders of the new movement, but not always 
successfully. 

Corrill started home with a " heart full of serious reflections.'' 
Were not the people of Berea nobler than the people of Thessalo- 
nica because "they searched the Scriptures daily, whether these 
things were so ? " Might he not be fighting against God in his dis- 
belief ? He spent two or three weeks reading the Mormon Bible ; 
investigated the bad reports of the new sect that reached him and 
found them without foundation ; went back to Kirtland, and there 
convinced himself that the laying on of hands and " speaking with 
tongues " were inspired by some supernatural agency ; admitted to 
himself that, accepting the words of Peter (Acts ii. 17-20), it was 
"just as consistent to look for prophets in this age as in any other." 
Smith seemed to have been a bad man, but was not Moses a fugi- 
tive from justice, as the murderer of a man whose body he had hid- 
den in the sand, when God called him as a prophet ? The story of 
the long hiding and final delivery of the golden plates to Smith 
taxed his credulity ; but on rereading the Scriptures he found that 
books are referred to therein which they do not contain — Book of 
Nathan the Prophet, Book of Gad the Seer,* Book of Shemaiah the 
Prophet, and Book of Iddo the Seer (1 Chron. xxix. 29; 2 Chron. 
ix. 29 and xii. 15). This convinced him that the Scriptures were 
not complete. Daniel and John were commanded to seal the Book. 
David declared (Psalms xxxv. 11) that "truth shall spring out of 
the earth," and from the earth Smith took the plates ; and Ezekiel 
(xxxvii. 15-21) foretold the existence of two records, by means of 
which there shall be a gathering together of the children of Israel. 
It finally seemed to Corrill that the Mormon Bible corresponded 
with the record of Joseph referred to by Ezekiel, the Holy Bible 
being the record of Judah. 

Not fully satisfied, he finally decided, however, to join the new 
church, with a mental reservation that he would leave it if he ever 
found it to be a deception. Explaining his reasons for leaving 
it when he did, he says, " I can see nothing that convinces me 
that God has been our leader; calculation after calculation has 



126 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



failed, and plan after plan has been overthrown, and our prophet 
seemed not to know the event till too late." / 

The two other most prominent converts to the new church in 
Ohio were the Rev. Ezra Booth, a Methodist preacher of more 
than ordinary culture, of Mantua, and Symonds Ryder, a native 
of Vermont, whom Alexander Campbell had converted to the 
Disciples' belief in 1828, and who occupied the pulpit at Hiram 
when called on. Booth visited Smith in 183 1, with some members 
of his own congregation, and was so impressed by the miraculous 
curing of the lame arm of a woman of his party by Smith, that he 
soon gave in his allegiance. Ryder had always found one thing 
lacking in the Disciples' theology — he looked for some actual 
" gift of the Holy Spirit " in the way of " signs " that were to fol- 
low them that believed. He was eventually induced to announce 
his conversion to the new church after " he read in a newspaper, 
an account of the destruction of Pekin in China, and remembered 
that, six weeks before, a young Mormon girl had predicted the 
destruction of that city." This statement was made in the sermon 
preached at his funeral. Both of these men confessed their mis- 
take four months later, after Booth had returned from a trip to 
Missouri with Smith. 

Among the ignorant, even the most extravagant of the claims 
of the Mormon leaders had influence. One man, when he heard 
an elder in the midst of a sermon "speak with tongues," in a 
language he had never heard before, "felt a sudden thrill from 
the back of his head down his backbone," and was converted on 
the spot. John D. Lee, of Catholic education, was convinced by 
an elder that the end of the world was near, and sold his property 
in Illinois for what it would bring, and moved to Far West, in 
order to be in the right place when the last day dawned. Lorenzo 
Snow, the recent President of the church, says that he was " thor- 
oughly convinced that obedience to those [the Mormon] prophets 
would impart miraculous powers, manifestations, and revelations," 
the first manifestation of which occurred some weeks later, when 
he heard a sound over his head " like the rustling of silken robes, 
and the spirit of God descended upon me." 1 

The arguments that control men's religious opinions are too 
varied even for classification. In a case like Mormonism they 

1 Biography of Snow, by his sister Eliza. 



THE FIRST CONVERTS AT KIRTLAND 



127 



range from the really conscientious study of a Corrill to the whim 
of the Paumotuan, of whom Stevenson heard in the South Seas, 
who turned Mormon when his wife died, after being a pillar of 
the Catholic church for fifteen years, on the ground that "that 
must be a poor religion that could not save a man his wife." Any 
person who will examine those early defences of the Mormon 
faith, Parley P. Pratt's "A Voice of Warning," and Orson Pratt's 
" Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," will find what use 
can be made of an insistence on the literal acceptance of the Scrip- 
tures in defending such a sect as theirs, especially with persons 
whose knowledge of the Scriptures is much less than their rever- 
ence for them. 

Professor J. B. Turner, 1 writing in 1842, when the early teach- 
ings of Mormonism had just had their effect in what is now styled 
the middle West, observed that these teachings had made more 
infidels than Mormon converts. This is accounted for by the fact 
that persons who attempted to follow the Mormon argument by 
studying the Scriptures, found their previous interpretation of 
parts of the Holy Bible overturned, and the whole book placed 
under a cloud. W. J. Stillman mentions a similar effect in the 
case of Ruskin. When they were in Switzerland, Ruskin would 
do no painting on Sunday, while Stillman regarded the sanctity 
of the first day of the week as a "theological fiction." In a dis- 
cussion of the subject between them, Stillman established to Rus- 
kin's satisfaction that there was no Scriptural authority for 
transferring the day of rest from the seventh to the first day of 
the week. " The creed had so bound him to the letter," says 
Stillman, "that the least enlargement of the stricture broke it, 
and he rejected, not only the tradition of the Sunday Sabbath, 
but the whole of the ecclesiastical interpretation of the texts. He 
said, ' If they have deceived me in this, they have probably de- 
ceived me in all.' " The Mormons soon learned that it was more 
profitable for them to seek converts among those who would ac- 
cept without reasoning. 

1 " Mormonism in all Ages." 



CHAPTER II 



WILD VAGARIES OF THE CONVERTS 

The scenes at Kirtland during the first winter of the church 
there reached the limit of religious enthusiasm. The younger 
members outdid the elder in manifesting their belief. They saw 
wonderful lights in the air, and constantly received visions. 
Mounting stumps in the field, they preached to imaginary con- 
gregations, and, picking up stones, they would read on them 
words which they said disappeared as soon as known. At the 
evening prayer-meetings the laying on of hands would be fol- 
lowed by a sort of fit, in which the enthusiasts would fall appar- 
ently lifeless on the floor, or contort their faces, creep on their 
hands or knees, imitate the Indian process of killing and scalping, 
and chase balls of fire through the fields. 1 

Some of the young men announced that they had received 
" commissions " to teach and preach, written on parchment, which 
came to them from the sky, and which they reached by jumping 
into the air. Howe reproduces one of these, the conclusion of 
which, with the seal, follows : — 

"That that you had a messenger tell you to go and get the other night, 
you must not show to any son of Adam. Obey this, and I will stand by you 
in all cases. My servants, obey my commandments in all cases, and I will 
provide. 

" Be ye always ready, ") 
Be ye always ready, ')- Whenever I shall call. 
Be ye always ready, J My seal. 




1 CorrilPs "Brief History of the Church," p. 16; Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," 
p. 104. 

128 



WILD VAGARIES OF THE CONVERTS 



129 



" There shall be something of great importance revealed when I shall call you 
to go : My servants, be faithful over a few things, and I will make you a ruler 
over many. Amen, Amen, Amen." 

Foolishly extravagant as these manifestations appear (Corrill 
says that comparatively few members indulged in them), there 
was nothing in them peculiar to the Mormon belief. The meet- 
ings of the Disciples, in the year of Smith's arrival in Ohio and 
later, when men like Campbell and Scott spoke, were swayed 
with the most intense religious enthusiasm. A description of the 
effect of Campbell's preaching at a grove meeting in the Cuya- 
hoga Valley in 1831 says : — 

" The woods were full of horses and carriages, and the hundreds already 
there were rapidly swelled to many thousands ; all were of one race — the 
Yankee ; all of one calling, or nearly — the farmer. . . . When Campbell 
closed, low murmurs broke and ran through the awed crowd ; men and women 
from all parts of the vast assembly with streaming eyes came forward ; young 
men who had climbed into small trees from curiosity, came down from conviction, 
and went forward for baptism. 11 1 

It is easy to cite very " orthodox " precedents for such mani- 
festations. One of these we find in the accounts of what were 
called "the jerks," which accompanied a great revival in 1803, 
brought about by the preaching of the Rev. Joseph Badger, a 
Yale graduate and a Congregationalist, who was the first mission- 
ary to the Western Reserve. J. S. C. Abbott, in his history of 
Ohio, describing the "jerks," says: — 

" The subject was instantaneously seized with spasms in every muscle, nerve 
and tendon. His head was thrown backward and forward, and from side to 
side, with inconceivable rapidity. So swift was the motion that the features 
could no more be discerned than the spokes of a wheel can be seen when 
revolving with the greatest velocity. . . . All were impressed with a conviction 
that there was something supernatural in these convulsions, and that it was 
opposing the spirit of God to resist them. 11 

The most extravagant enthusiasm of the Kirtland converts, 
and the most extravagant claims of the Mormon leaders at that 
time, were exceeded by the manifestations of converts in the 
early days of Methodism, and the miraculous occurrences testified 
to by Wesley himself, 2 — a cloud tempering the sun in answer to 

1 Riddle's "The Portrait." 

2 For examples see Lecky's " England in the Nineteenth Century," Vol. Ill, Chap. 
VIII, and Wesley's " Journal." 

K 



130 THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 

his prayer ; his horse cured of lameness by faith ; the case of a 
blind Catholic girl who saw plainly when her eyes rested on the 
New Testament, but became blind again when she took up the 
Mass Book. 

These Mormon enthusiasts were only suffering from a manifes- 
tation to which man is subject; and we can agree with a Mormon 
elder who, although he left the church disgusted with its extrava- 
gances, afterward remarked, "The man of religious feeling will 
know how to pity rather than upbraid that zeal without knowledge 
which leads a man to fancy that he has found the ladder of Jacob, 
and that he sees the angel of the Lord ascending and descending 
before his eyes." 

When Smith and Rigdon reached. Kirtland they found the new 
church in a state of chaos because of these wild excitements, and 
of an attempt to establish a community of possessions, growing out 
of Rigdon's previous teachings. These communists held that what 
belonged to one belonged to all, and that they could even use any 
one's clothes or other personal property without asking permission. 
Many of the flock resented this, and anything but a condition of 
brotherly love resulted. Smith, in his account of the situation as 
they found it, says that the members were striving to do the will 
of God, " though some had strange notions, and false spirits had 
crept in among them. With a little caution and some wisdom, I 
soon assisted the brothers and sisters to overcome them. The plan 
of ' common stock,' which had existed in what was called ' the 
family,' whose members generally had embraced the Everlasting 
Gospel, was readily abandoned for the more perfect law of the 
Lord," 1 — which the prophet at once expounded. 

Smith announced that the Lord had informed him that the 
ravings of the converts were of the devil, and this had a deterring 
effect ; but at an important meeting of elders to receive an endow- 
ment, some three months later, conducted by Smith himself, the 
spirits got hold of some of the elders. " It threw one from his 
seat to the floor," says Corrill. " It bound another so that for 
some time he could not use his limbs or speak ; and some other 
curious effects were experienced. But by a mighty exertion, in 
the name of the Lord, it was exposed and shown to be of an evil 
source." 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 56. 



CHAPTER III 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH 

In order not to interrupt the story of the Mormons' experiences 
in Ohio, leaving the first steps taken in Missouri to be treated in 
connection with the regular course of events in that state, it will 
be sufficient to say here that Cowdery, Pratt, and their two com- 
panions continued their journey as far as the western border of 
Missouri, in the winter of 1830 and 183 1, making their headquar- 
ters at Independence, Jackson County; that, on receipt of their 
reports about that country, Smith and Rigdon, with others, made 
a trip there in June, 183 1, during which the corner-stones of the 
City of Zion and the Temple were laid, and officers were appointed 
to receive money for the purchase of the land for the Saints, its 
division, etc. Smith and Rigdon returned to Kirtland on August 
27, 1831. 

The growth of the church in Ohio was rapid. In two or three 
weeks after the arrival of the four pioneer missionaries, 127 per- 
sons had been baptized, and by the spring of 183 1 the number of 
converts had increased to 1000. Almost all the male converts 
were honored with the title of elder. By a " revelation " dated 
February 9, 183 1 (Sec. 42), all of these elders, except Smith and 
Rigdon, were directed to "go forth in the power of my spirit, 
preaching my Gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your 
voices as with the voice of a trump." This was the beginning of 
that extensive system of proselyting which was soon extended to 
Europe, which was so instrumental in augmenting the membership 
of the church in its earlier days, and which is still carried on with 
the utmost zeal and persistence. The early missionaries travelled 
north into Canada and through almost all the states, causing alarm 
even in New England by the success of their work. One man 
there, in 1832, reprinted at his own expense Alexander Campbell's 

131 



132 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



pamphlet exposing the ridiculous features of the Mormon Bible, 
for distribution as an offset to the arguments of the elders. 
Women of means were among those who moved to Kirtland from 
Massachusetts. In three years after Smith and Rigdon met in 
Palmyra, Mormon congregations had been established in nearly 
all the Northern and Middle states and in some of the Southern, 
with baptisms of from 30 to 130 in a place. 1 

Smith had relaxed none of his determination to be the one 
head of the church. As soon as he arrived in Kirtland he put 
forth a long "revelation" (Sec. 43) which left Rigdon no doubt of 
the prophet's intentions. It declared to the elders that " there is 
none other [but Smith] appointed unto you to receive command- 
ments and revelations until he be taken," and that " none else shall 
be appointed unto his gift except it be through him." Not only 
was Smith's spiritual power thus intrenched, but his temporal 
welfare was looked after. " And again I say unto you," continues 
this mouthpiece of the Lord, "if ye desire the mysteries of the 
Kingdom, provide for him food and raiment and whatsoever he 
needeth to accomplish the work wherewith I have commanded him." 
In the same month came another declaration, saying (Sec. 41), 
" It is meet that my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., should have a house 
built, in which to live and translate " (the Scriptures). With a 
streak of generosity it was added, " It is meet that my servant 
Sidney Rigdon should live as seemeth him good." 

The iron hand with which Smith repressed Rigdon from the 
date of their arrival in Ohio affords strong proof of Rigdon's com- 
plicity in the Bible plot, and of Smith's realization of the fact that 
he stood to his accomplice in the relation of a burglar to his mate, 
where the burglar has both the boodle and the secret in his posses- 
sion.-' An illustration of this occurred during their first trip to 
Missouri. Rigdon and Smith did not agree about the desirability 
of western Missouri as a permanent abiding-place for the church. 
The Rev. Ezra Booth, after leaving the Mormons, contributed a 
series of letters on his experience with Smith to the Ohio Star of 
Ravenna. 2 In the first of these he said : " On our arrival in the 
western part of the state of Missouri we discovered that prophecy 
and visions had failed, or rather had proved false. This fact was 

1 Turner's " Mormonism in all Ages," p. 38. 

2 Copied in Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled." 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH 



133 



so notorious that Mr. Rigdon himself says that 'Joseph's vision 
was a bad thing.' " Smith nevertheless directed Rigdon to write 
a description of that promised land, and, when the production did 
not suit him, he represented the Lord as censuring Rigdon in a 
"revelation" (Sec. 63): — 

" And now behold, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, am not pleased with 
my servant Sidney Rigdon ; he exalteth himself in his heart, and receiveth not 
counsel, but grieveth the spirit. Wherefore his writing is not acceptable unto 
the Lord ; and he shall make another, and if the Lord receiveth it not, behold he 
standeth no longer in the office which I have appointed him." 

That the proud-minded, educated preacher, who refused to 
allow Campbell to claim the foundership of the Disciples' church, 
should take such a rebuke and threat of dismissal in silence from 
Joe Smith of Palmyra, and continue under his leadership, cer- 
tainly indicates some wonderful hold that the prophet had upon 
him. 

While the travelling elders were doing successful work in 
adding new converts to the fold, there was beginning to manifest 
itself at Kirtland that " apostasy " which lost the church so 
many members of influence, and was continued in Missouri so far 
that Mayor Grant said, in Salt Lake City, in 1856, that " one-half 
at least of the Yankee members of this church have apostatized." 1 
The secession of men like Booth and Ryder, and their public 
exposure of Smith's methods, coupled with rumors of immoral 
practices in the fold, were followed by the tarring and feathering 
of Smith and Rigdon on the night of Saturday, March 25, 1832. 
The story of this outrage is told in Smith's autobiography, and 
the details there given may be in the main accepted. 

Smith and his wife were living at the house of a farmer named 
Johnson in Hiram township, while he and Rigdon were translating 
the Scriptures. Mrs. Smith had taken two infant twins to bring 
up, and on the night in question she and her husband were taking 
turns sitting up with these babies, who were just recovering from 
the measles. While Smith was sleeping, his wife heard a tapping 
on the window, but gave it no attention. The mob, believing that 
all within were asleep, then burst in the door, seized Smith as he 
lay partly dressed on a trundle bed, and rushed him out of doors, 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 201. 



134 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



his wife crying " murder." Smith struggled as best he could, but 
they carried him around the house, choking him until he became 
unconscious. Some thirty yards from the house he saw Rigdon, 
" stretched out on the ground, whither they had dragged him by 
the heels." When they had carried Smith some thirty yards 
farther, some of the mob meantime asking, "Ain't ye going to 
kill him ? " a council was held and some one asked, " Simmons, 
where's the tar-bucket ? " When the bucket was brought up they 
tried to force the "tar-paddle" into Smith's mouth, and also, he 
says, to force a phial between his teeth. He adds : — 

" All my clothes were torn off me except my shirt collar, and one man fell on 
me and scratched my body with his nails like a mad cat. They then left me, and 
I attempted to rise, but fell again. I pulled the tar away from my lips, etc., so that 
I could breathe more freely, and after a while I began to recover, and raised myself 
up, when I saw two lights. I made my way toward one of them, and found it was 
father Johnson's. When I had come to the door I was naked, and the tar made 
me look as though I had been covered with blood ; and when my wife saw me 
she thought I was all smashed to pieces, and fainted. During the affray abroad, 
the sisters of the neighborhood collected at my room. I called for a blanket : 
they threw me one and shut the door ; I wrapped it around me and went in. . . . 
My friends spent the night in scraping and removing the tar and washing and 
cleansing my body, so that by morning I was ready to be clothed again. . . . 
With my flesh all scarified and defaced, I preached [that morning] to the 
congregation as usual, and in the afternoon of the same day baptized three 
individuals." 

Rigdon's treatment is described as still more severe. He was 
not only dragged over the ground by the heels, but was well 
covered with tar and feathers ; and when Smith called on him 
the next day he found him delirious, and calling for a razor with 
which to kill his wife. 

All Mormon accounts of this, as well as later persecutions, 
attempt to make the ground of attack hostility to the Mormon 
religious beliefs, presenting them entirely in the light of outrages 
on liberty of opinion. Symonds Ryder (whom Smith accuses of 
being one of the mob), says that the attack had this origin : The 
people of Hiram had the reputation of being very receptive and 
liberal in their religious views. The Mormons therefore preached 
to them, and seemed in a fair way to win a decided success, when 
the leaders made their first trip to Missouri. Papers which they 
left behind outlining the internal system of the new church fell 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH 



135 



into the hands of some of the converts, and " revealed to them the 
horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them 
and place it under the control of Smith, the Prophet. . . . Some 
who had been the dupes of this deception determined not to let it 
pass with impunity ; and, accordingly, a company was formed of 
citizens from Shalersville, Garretsville, and Hiram, and took 
Smith and Rigdon from their beds and tarred and feathered 
them." 1 

This manifestation of hostility to the leaders of the new church 
was only a more pronounced form of that which showed itself 
against Smith before he left New York State. When a man of 
his character and previous history assumes the right to baptize 
and administer the sacrament, he is certain to arouse the animos- 
ity, not only of orthodox church members, but of members of the 
community who are lax in their church duties. Goldsmith illus- 
trates this kind of feeling when, in " She Stoops to Conquer," he 
makes one of the " several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco " 
in the alehouse say, " I loves to hear him [the squire] sing, be- 
keays he never gives us nothing that's low," and another responds, 
" O, damn anything that's low." The Anti-Mormon feeling was 
intensified and broadened by the aggressiveness with which the 
Mormons sought for converts in the orthodox flocks. 

Beliefs radically different from those accepted by any of the 
orthodox denominations have escaped hostile opposition in this 
country, even when they have outraged generally accepted social 
customs. The Harmonists, in a body of 600, emigrated to Penn- 
sylvania to escape the persecution to which they were subjected 
in Germany, purchased 5000 acres of land and organized a town ; 
moved later to Indiana, where they purchased 25,000 acres; and 
ten years afterward returned to Pennsylvania, and bought 5000 
acres in another place, — all the time holding to their belief in a 
community of goods and a speedy coming of Christ, as well as the 
duty of practicing celibacy, — without exciting their neighbors or 
arousing their enmity. The Wallingford Community in Connecti- 
cut, and the Oneida Community in New York State, practised 
free love among themselves without persecution, until their organ- 
izations died from natural causes. The leaders in these and other 
independent sects were clean men within their own rules, honest 

1 Hayden's " Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western Reserve," p. 221. 



136 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



in their dealings with their neighbors, never seeking political 
power, and never pressing their opinions upon outsiders. An old 
resident of Wallingford writes to me, " The Community were, in 
a way, very generally respected for their high standard of integ- 
rity in all their business transactions." 

As we follow the career of the Mormons from Ohio to Missouri, 
and thence to Illinois, we shall read their own testimony about the 
character of their leading men, and about their view of the rights 
of others in each of their neighborhoods. When Horace Greeley 
asked Brigham Young in Salt Lake City for an explanation of the 
"persecutions" of the Mormons, his reply was that there was "no 
other explanation than is afforded by the crucifixion of Christ and 
the kindred treatment of God's ministers, prophets, and saints in 
all ages " ; which led Greeley to observe that, while a new sect is 
always decried and traduced, — naming the Baptists, Quakers, 
Methodists, and Universalists, — he could not remember "that 
either of them was ever generally represented and regarded 
by the other sects of their early days as thieves, robbers, and 
murderers." 1 

Another attempt by Rigdon to assert his independence of 
Smith occurred while the latter was still at Mr. Johnson's house 
and Rigdon was in Kirtland. The fullest account of this is found 
in Mother Smith's " History," pp. 204-206. She says that Rigdon 
came in late to a prayer-meeting, much agitated, and, instead of 
taking the platform, paced backward and forward on the floor. 
Joseph's father told him they would like to hear a discourse from 
him, but he replied, " The keys of the Kingdom are rent from the 
church, and there shall not be a prayer put up in this house this 
day." This caused considerable excitement, and Smith's brother 
Hyrum left the house, saying, " I'll put a stop to this fuss pretty 
quick," and, mounting a horse, set out for Johnson's and brought 
the prophet back with him. On his arrival, a meeting of the 
brethren was held, and Joseph declared to them, " I myself hold 
the keys of this Last Dispensation, and will forever hold them, 
both in time and eternity, so set your hearts at rest upon that 
point. All is right." The next day Rigdon was tried before a 
council for having " lied in the name of the Lord," and was "de- 
livered over to the buffetings of Satan," and deprived of his license, 

1 " Overland Journey," p. 214. 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH 



137 



Smith telling him that " the less priesthood he had, the better it 
would be for him." Rigdon, Mrs. Smith says, according to his 
own account, " was dragged out of bed by the devil three times 
in one night by the heels," and, while she does not accept this lit- 
erally, she declares that "his contrition was as great as a man 
could well live through." After awhile he got another license. 



CHAPTER IV 



GIFTS OF TONGUES AND MIRACLES 

In January, 1833, Smith announced a revival of the "gift of 
tongues," and instituted the ceremony of washing the feet. 1 Un- 
der the new system, Smith or Rigdon, during a meeting, would 
call on some brother, or sister, saying, "Father A., if you will 
rise in the name of Jesus Christ you can speak in tongues." The 
rule which persons thus called on were to follow was thus explained, 
" Arise upon your feet, speak or make some sound, continue to 
make sounds of some kind, and the Lord will make a language of 
it." It was not necessary that the words should be understood by 
the congregation ; some other Mormon would undertake their in- 
terpretation. Much ridicule was incurred by the church because 
of this kind of revelation. Gunnison relates that when a woman 
" speaking in tongues " pronounced " meliar, meli, melee," it was 
at once translated by a young wag, " my leg, my thigh, my knee," 
and, when he was called before the Council charged with irrever- 
ence, he' persisted in his translation, but got off with an admoni- 
tion. 2 At a meeting in Nauvoo in later years a doubting convert 
delivered an address in real Choctaw, whereupon a woman jumped 
up and offered as a translation an account of the glories of the new 
Temple. 

At the conference of June 4, 1831, Smith ordained Elder 
Wright to the high priesthood for service among the Indians, 
with the gift of tongues, healing the sick, etc. Wright at once 
declared that he saw the Saviour. At one of the sessions at Kirt- 
land at this time, as described by an eye-witness, Smith announced 
that the day would come when no man would be permitted to 
preach unless he had seen the Lord face to face. Then, address- 
ing Rigdon, he asked, " Sidney, have you seen the Lord ? " The 

1 This ceremony has fallen into disuse in Utah. 
2 "The Mormons," p. 74. 

138 



GIFTS OF TONGUES AND MIRACLES 



139 



obedient Sidney made reply, " I saw the image of a man pass be- 
fore my face, whose locks were white, and whose countenance was 
exceedingly fair, even surpassing all beauty that I ever beheld." 
Smith at once rebuked him by telling him that he would have seen 
more but for his unbelief. 

Almost simultaneously with Smith's first announcement of his 
prophetic powers, while working his " peek-stone " in Pennsyl- 
vania and New York, he, as we have seen, claimed ability to per- 
form miracles, and he announced that he had cast out a devil at 
Colesville in 1830. 1 The performance of miracles became an es- 
sential part of the church work at Kirtland, and had a great effect 
on the superstitious converts. The elders, who in the early days 
labored in England, laid great stress on their miraculous power, and 
there were some amusing exposures of their pretences. The Mil- 
lennial Star printed a long list of successful miracles dating from 
1839 to 1850, including the deaf made to hear, the blind to see, 
dislocated bones put in place, leprosy and cholera cured, and fevers 
rebuked. Smith, Rigdon, and Cowdery took a leading part in this 
work at Kirtland. 2 To a man nearly dead with consumption Rig- 
don gave assurance that he would recover " as sure as there is a 
God in heaven." The man's death soon followed. When a child, 
whose parents had been persuaded to trust its case to Mormon 
prayers instead of calling a physician, 3 died, Smith and Rigdon 
promised that it would rise from the dead, and they went through 
certain ceremonies to accomplish that object. 4 

The lengths to which Smith dared go in his pretensions are 
well illustrated in an incident of these days. Among the curios- 

1 For particulars of this miracle, see Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 28, 32. 

2 While Smith was in Washington in 1840, pressing on the federal authorities the 
claims of the Mormons for redress for their losses in Missouri, he preached on the 
church doctrines. A member of Congress who heard him sent a synopsis of the dis- 
course to his wife, and Smith printed this entire in his autobiography (Millennial 
Star, Vol. XVII, p. 583). Here is one passage: "He [Smith] performed no miracles. 
He did not pretend to possess any such power." This is an illustration of the facility 
with which Smith could lie, when to do so would serve his purpose. 

3 The Saints were early believers in faith cure. Smith, in a sermon preached in 
1841, urged them " to trust in God when sick, and live by faith and not by medicine or 
poison" (Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 663). A coroner's jury, in an inquest over 
a victim of this faith in London, England, cautioned the sect against continuing this 
method of curing (Times and Seasons, 1842, p. 813). 

4 For further illustrations of miracle working in Ohio, see Kennedy's " Early Days 
of Mormonism," Chap. V. 



140 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



ities of a travelling showman who passed through Kirtland were 
some Egyptian mummies. As the golden plates from which the 
Mormon Bible was translated were written in " reformed Egyp- 
tian," the translator of those plates was interested in all things 
coming from Egypt, and at his suggestion the mummies were pur- 
chased by and for the church. On them were found some papyri 
which Joseph, with the assistance of Phelps and Cowdery, set about 
"translating." Their success was great, and Smith was able to 
announce : " We found that one of these rolls contained the writ- 
ings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph. 1 Truly we could 
see that the Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance of truth." 
That there might be no question about the accuracy of Smith's 
translation, he exhibited a certificate signed by the proprietor 
of the show, saying that he had exhibited the " hieroglyphic 
characters" to the most learned men in many cities, "and 
from all the information that I could ever learn or meet with, I 
find that of Joseph Smith, Jr., to correspond in the most minute 
matters." 

Smith's autobiography contains this memorandum : " October i, 
1835. This afternoon I labored on the Egyptian alphabet in com- 
pany with Brother O. Cowdery and W. W. Phelps, and during the 
research the principals of astronomy, as understood by Father 
Abraham and the Ancients, unfolded to our understanding." 
When he was in the height of his power in Nauvoo, Smith printed 
in the Times and Seasons a reproduction of these hieroglyphics ac- 
companied by this alleged translation, of what he called "the 
Book of Abraham," and they were also printed in the Millennial 
Star? The translation was a meaningless jumble of words after 
this fashion : — 

"In the land of the Chaldeans, at the residence of my father, I, Abraham, saw 
that it was needful for me to obtain another place of residence, and finding there 
was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the 
Fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same, 
having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring to be one also who pos- 

1 When the papyri were shown to Josiah Quincy and Charles Francis Adams, on 
the occasion of their visit to Nauvoo in 1844, Joseph Smith, pointing out the inscrip- 
tions, said : " That is the handwriting of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful. This is 
the autograph of Moses, and these lines were written by his brother Aaron. Here we 
have the earliest account of the creation, from which Moses composed the first Book of 
•Genesis." — "Figures of the Past," p. 386. 

2 See Vol. XIX, p. 100, etc.^ from which the accompanying facsimile is taken. 



•: !.;y.-r \V; ; .!:-.: ai which tinu! I ex- : of the Hook of Abraham iij the T'untt 
J -Jiv i itl.»ii » !-.;>j--f.< i»t pritn'ipk'S in re-- anil .SevMO/is, us follows — 

[ A<- StMIf.C KKUH THE BOOK OF AIUIAII VM. No. 1. 




EXPLANATION OF TIIE ABOVE CUT. 

1. The angel of the Lord. 

2. Abraham fastened ujion an altar. 

: J Tlie idolatrous priest of Etkeuah attempting to offer up Abraham as a sacrifice. 




GIFTS OF TONGUES AND MIRACLES 



141 



sessed great knowledge, and to possess greater knowledge, and to be a greater 
follower of righteousness." 

Remy submitted a reproduction of these hieroglyphics to The- 
odule Deveria, of the Museum of the Louvre, in Paris, who found, 
of course, that Smith's purported translation was wholly fraudulent. 
For instance, his Abraham fastened on an altar was a representa- 
tion of Osiris coming to life on his funeral couch, his officiating 
priest was the god Anubis, and what Smith represents to indicate 
an angel of the Lord is "the soul of Osiris, under the form of a 
hawk." 1 Smith's whole career offered no more brazen illustration 
of his impostures than this. 

A visitor to the Kirtland Temple some years later paid Joseph's 
father half a dollar in order to see the Egyptian curios, which were 
kept in the attic of that structure. 

A well-authenticated anecdote, giving another illustration of 
Smith's professed knowledge of the Egyptian language is told by 
the Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., who, after holding the Professor- 
ship of Divinity in Kemper College, in Missouri, became vicar of 
a church in England. Mr. Caswall, on the occasion of a visit to 
Nauvoo in 1842, having heard of Smith's Egyptian lore, took with 
him an ancient Greek manuscript of the Psalter, on parchment, 
with which to test the prophet's scholarship. The belief of Smith's 
followers in his powers was shown by their eagerness to have 
him see this manuscript, and their persistence in urging Mr. Cas- 
wall to wait a day for Smith's return from Carthage that he might 
submit it to the prophet. Mr. Caswall the next day handed the 
manuscript to Smith and asked him to explain its contents. After 
a brief examination, Smith explained : " It ain't Greek at all, ex- 
cept perhaps a few words. What ain't Greek is Egyptian, and 
what ain't Egyptian is Greek. This book is very valuable. It is 
a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics. These figures [pointing 
to the capitals] is Egyptian hieroglyphics written in the reformed 
Egyptian. These characters are like the letters that were en- 
graved on the golden plates." 2 

1 See "A Journey to Great Salt Lake City," by Jules Remy (1861), Note XVII. 

2 "The City of the Mormons," p. 36 (1842). 



CHAPTER V 



SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES 

When Rigdon returned to Ohio with Smith in January, 183 1, 
it seems to have been his intention to make Kirtland the perma- 
nent headquarters of the new church. He had written to his 
people from Palmyra, " Be it known to you, brethren, that you 
are dwelling on your eternal inheritance." When Cowdery and his 
associates arrived in Ohio on their first trip, they announced as 
the boundaries of the Promised Land the township of Kirtland on 
the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Within two months 
of his arrival at Kirtland Smith gave out a "revelation " (Sec. 45), 
in which the Lord commanded the elders to go forth into the west- 
ern countries and build up churches, and they were told of a City 
of Refuge for the church, to be called the New Jerusalem. No 
definite location of this city was given, and the faithful were 
warned to " keep these things from going abroad unto the world." 
Another " revelation " of the same month (Sec. 48) announced 
that it was necessary for all to remain for the present in their 
places of abode, and directed those who had lands " to impart to 
the eastern brethren," and the others to buy lands, and all to save 
money "to purchase lands for an inheritance, even the city." 

The reports of those who first went to Missouri induced Smith 
and Rigdon, before they made their first trip to that state, to an- 
nounce that the Saints would pass one more winter in Ohio. But 
when they had visited the Missouri frontier and realized its dis- 
tance from even the Ohio border line, and the actual privations to 
which settlers there must submit, their zeal weakened, and they 
declared, "It will be many years before we come here, for the 
Lord has a great work for us to do in Ohio." The building of the 
Temple at Kirtland, and the investments in lots and in business 
enterprises there showed that a permanent settlement in Ohio was 
then decided on. 

142 



SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES 



143 



Smith's first business enterprise for the church in Ohio was a 
general store which he opened in Hiram. This establishment has 
been described as " a poorly furnished country store where com- 
merce looks starvation in the face." 1 The difficulty of combining 
the positions of prophet, head of the church, and retail merchant 
was naturally great. The result of the combination has been 
graphically pictured by no less an authority than Brigham Young. 
In a discourse in Salt Lake City, explaining why the church did 
not maintain a store there, Young said : — 

"You that have lived in Nauvoo, in Missouri, in Kirtland, O., can you assign 
a reason why Joseph could not keep a store and be a merchant ? Let me just 
give you a few reasons ; and there are men here who know just how matters went 
in those days. Joseph goes to New York and buys $20,000 worth of goods, 
comes into Kirtland and commences to trade. In comes one of the brethren. 
' Brother Joseph, let me have a frock pattern for my wife.' What if Joseph says, 
' No, I cannot without money.' The consequence would be, ' He is no Prophet,' 
says James. Pretty soon Thomas walks in. * Brother Joseph, will you trust me 
for a pair of boots ?' 'No, I cannot let them go without money.' 'Well,' says 
Thomas, ' Brother Joseph is no Prophet ; I have found that out and I am glad of 
it.' After a while in comes Bill and Sister Susan. Says Bill, ' Brother Joseph, 
I want a shawl. I have not got any money, but I wish you to trust me a week or 
a fortnight.' Well, Brother Joseph thinks the others have gone and apostatized, 
and he don't know but these goods will make the whole church do the same, so 
he lets Bill have a shawl. Bill walks off with it and meets a brother. 4 Well,' 
says he, 4 what do you think of Brother Joseph ? ' i O, he is a first rate man, and 
I fully believe he is a Prophet. He has trusted me this shawl.' Richard says, i I 
think I will go down and see if he won't trust me some.' In walks Richard. 
' Brother Joseph, I want to trade about $20.' 1 Well,' says Joseph, < these goods 
will make the people apostatize, so over they go ; they are of less value than the 
people.' Richard gets his goods. Another comes in the same way to make a 
trade of $25, and so it goes. Joseph was a first rate fellow with them all the 
time, provided he never would ask them to pay him. And so you may trace it 
down through the history of this people." 2 

If this analysis of the flock which Smith gathered in Ohio, and 
which formed the nucleus of the settlements in Missouri, was not 
permanently recorded in an official church record, its authenticity 
would be vigorously assailed. 

Later enterprises at Kirtland, undertaken under the auspices of 
the church, included a steam sawmill and a tannery, both of which 
were losing concerns. But the speculation to which later Mormon 

1 Salt Lake Herald, November 17, 1877. 

2 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 215. 



144 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



authorities attributed the principal financial disasters of the church 
at Kirtland was the purchase of land and its sale as town lots. 1 
The craze for land speculation in those days was not confined, 
however, to the Mormons. That was the period when the pur- 
chase of public lands of the United States seemed likely to reach 
no limit. These sales, which amounted to $2,300,000 in 1830, and 
to $4,800,000 in 1834, jumped to $14,757,600 in 1835, and to 
$24,877,179 in 1836. The government deposits (then made in 
the state banks) increased from $10,000,000 on January 1, 1835, 
to $41,500,000 on June 1, 1836, the increase coming from receipts 
from land sales. This led to that bank expansion which was 
measured by the growth of bank capital in this country — from 
$61,000,000 to $200,000,000 between 1830 and 1834, with a fur- 
ther advance to $251,000,000. 

The Mormon leaders and their people were peculiarly liable to 
be led into disaster when sharing in this speculators' fever. They 
were, however, quick to take advantage of the spirit of the times. 
The Zion of Missouri lost its attractiveness to them, and on Feb- 
ruary 23, 1833, the Presidency decided to purchase land at Kirt- 
land, and to establish thereon a permanent Stake of Zion. The 
land purchases of the church began at once, and we find a record 
of one Council meeting, on March 23, 1833, at which it was de- 
cided to buy three farms costing respectively $4000, $2100, and 
$5000. Kirtland was laid out (on paper) with 32 streets, cutting 
one another at right angles, each four rods wide. This provided 
for 225 blocks of 20 lots each. Twenty-nine of the streets were 
named after Mormons. Joseph and his family appear many times 
in the list of conveyors of these lots. The original map of the 
city, as described in Smith's autobiography, provided for 24 pub- 
lic buildings — temples, schools, etc.; no lot to contain more thap, 
one house, and that not to be nearer than 25 feet from the street, 
with a prohibition against erecting a stable on a house lot. 2 

Of course this Mormon capital must have a grand church edi- 
fice, to meet Smith's views, and he called a council to decide about 

1 " Real estate rose from 100 to 800 per cent and in many cases more. Men who 
were not thought worth $50 or $100 became purchasers of thousands. Notes (some- 
times cash), deeds and mortgages passed and repassed, till all, or nearly all, supposed 
they had become wealthy, or at least had acquired a competence." — Messenger and 
Advocate, June, 1 837. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 438-439. 



SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES 



145 



the character of the new meeting-house. A few of the speakers 
favored a modest frame building, but a majority thought a log one 
better suited to their means. Joseph rebuked the latter, asking, 
" Shall we, brethren, build a house for our God of logs ? " and he 
straightway led them to the corner of a wheat field, where the 
trench for the foundation was at once begun. 1 No greater exhibi- 
tion of business folly could have been given than the undertaking 
of the costly building then planned on so slender a financial 
foundation. 

The corner-stone was laid on July 23, 1833, and the Temple 
was not dedicated until March 27, 1836. Mormon devotion cer- 
tainly showed itself while this work was going on. Every male 
member was expected to give one-seventh of his time to the build- 
ing without pay, and those who worked on it at day's wages had, 
in most instances, no other income, and often lived on nothing but 
corn meal. The women, as their share, knit and wove garments 
for the workmen. 

The Temple, which is of stone covered with a cement stucco 
(it is still in use), measures 60 by 80 feet on the ground, is 123 feet 
in height to the top of the spire, and contains two stories and an 
attic. 

The cost of this Temple was $40,000, and, notwithstanding the 
sacrifices made by the Saints in assisting its construction, and the 
schemes of the church officers to secure funds, a debt of from 
$15,000 to $20,000 remained upon it. That the church was finan- 
cially embarrassed at the very beginning of the work is shown by 
a letter addressed to the brethren in Zion, Missouri, by Smith, 
Rigdon, and Williams, dated June 25, 1833, in which they said, 
" Say to Brother Gilbert that we have no power to assist him in a 
Decuniary point, as we know not the hour when we shall be sued 
for debts which we have contracted ourselves in New York." 2 

To understand the business crash and scandals which com- 
pelled Smith and his associates to flee from Ohio, it is necessary 
to explain the business system adopted by the church under them. 
This system began with a rule about the consecration of property. 
As originally published in the Evening and Morning Star, and in 
chapter xliv of the " Book of Commandments," this rule declared, 

1 Mother Smith's "Biographical Sketches," p. 213. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 450. 

L 



146 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" Thou shalt consecrate all thy properties, that which thou hast, 
unto me, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken," 
with a provision that the Bishop, after he had received such an 
irrevocable deed, should appoint every man a steward over so much 
of his property as would be sufficient for himself and family. 
In the later edition of the " Doctrine and Covenants " this was 
changed to read, " And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and 
consecrate thy properties for their support," etc. 

By a "revelation" given out while the heads of the church 
were in Jackson County, Missouri, in April, 1832 (Sec. 82), a sort 
of firm was appointed, including Smith, Rigdon, Cowdery, Harris, 
and N. K. Whitney, " to manage the affairs of the poor, and all 
things pertaining to the bishopric," both in Ohio and Missouri. 
This firm thus assumed control of the property which "revelation " 
had placed in the hands of the Bishop. This arrangement was 
known as The Order of Enoch. Next came a "revelation" dated 
April 23, 1834 (Sec. 104), by which the properties of the Order 
were divided, Rigdon getting the place in which he was living in 
Kirtland, and the tannery ; Harris a lot, with a command to 
" devote his monies for the proclaiming of my words " ; Cowdery 
and Williams, the printing-office, with some extra lots to Cowdery ; 
and Smith, the lot designed for the Temple, and " the inheritance 
on which his father resides." The building of the Temple hav- 
ing brought the Mormon leaders into debt, this "revelation," was 
designed to help them out, and it contained these further direc- 
tions, in the voice of the Lord, be it remembered : — 

"The covenants being broken through transgression, by covetousness and 
feigned words, therefore you are dissolved as a United Order with your brethren, 
that you are not bound only up to this hour unto them, only on this wise, as I 
said, by loan as shall be agreed by this Order in council, as your circumstances 
will admit, and the voice of the council direct. . . . 

"And again verily I say unto you, concerning your debts, behold it is my 
will that you should pay all your debts ; and it is my will that you should humble 
yourselves before me, and obtain this blessing by your diligence and humility and 
the prayer of faith ; and inasmuch as you are diligent and humble, and exercise 
the prayer of faith, behold, I will soften the hearts of those to whom you are in 
debt, until I shall send means unto you for your deliverance. ... I give you a 
promise that you shall be delivered this once out of your bondage ; inasmuch as 
you obtained a chance to loan money by hundreds, or thousands even until you 
shall loan enough [meaning borrow] to deliver yourselves from bondage, it is 
your privilege ; and pledge the properties which I have put into your hands this 



SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES 



147 



once. . . . The master will not suffer his house to be broken up. Even so. 
Amen." 

It does not appear that the Mormon leaders took advantage 
of this authorization to borrow money on Kirtland real estate, if 
they could; but in 1835 they set up several mercantile establish- 
ments, finding firms in Cleveland, Buffalo, and farther east who 
would take their notes on six months' time. " A great part of the 
goods of these houses," says William Harris, "went to pay the 
workmen on the Temple, and many were sold on credit, so that 
when the notes became due the houses were not able to meet 
them." 

Smith's autobiography relates part of one story of an effort of 
his to secure money at this trying time, the complete details of 
which have been since supplied. He simply says that on July 
25, 1836, in company with his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, 
and Oliver Cowdery, he started on a trip which brought them 
to Salem, Massachusetts, where " we hired a house and occupied 
the same during the month, teaching the people from house to 
house." 1 The Mormon of to-day, in reading his " Doctrine and 
Covenants," finds Section 111 very perplexing. No place of its 
reception is given, but it goes on to say : — 

" I, the Lord your God, am not displeased with your coming this journey, 
notwithstanding your follies ; I have much treasure in this city for you, for the 
benefit of Zion ; . . . and it shall come to pass in due time, that I will give this 
city into your hands, that you shall have power over it, insomuch that they shall 
not discover your secret parts ; and its wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall 
be yours. Concern not yourself about your debts, for I will give you power to 
pay them. . . . And inquire diligently concerning the more ancient inhabitants 
and founders of this city ; for there are more treasures than one for you in this 
city." 

" This city " was Salem, Massachusetts, and the " revelation " 
was put forth to brace up the spirits of Smith's fellow-travellers. 
A Mormon named Burgess had gone to Kirtland with a story 
about a large amount of money that was buried in the cellar of 
a house in Salem which had belonged to a widow, and the location 
of which he alone knew. Smith credited this report, and looked 
to the treasure to assist him in his financial difficulties, and he 
took the persons named with him on the trip. But when they 



1 Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 281. 



148 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



got there Burgess said that time had so changed the appearance 
of the houses that he could not be sure which was the widow's, 
and he cleared out. Smith then hired a house which he thought 
might be the right one, — it proved not to be, — and it was when 
his associates were becoming discouraged that the ex-money-digger 
uttered the words quoted, to strengthen their courage. " We speak 
of these things with regret," says Ebenezer Robinson, who be- 
lieved in the prophet's divine calling to the last. 1 

Brought face to face with apparent financial disaster, the next 
step taken to prevent this was the establishment of a bank. Smith 
told of a " revelation " concerning a bank "which would swallow 
up all other banks." An application for a charter was made to 
the Ohio legislature, but it was refused. The law of Ohio at that 
time provided that " all notes and bills, bonds and other securities 
[of an unchartered bank] shall be held and taken in all courts as 
absolutely void." This, however, did not deter a man of Smith's 
audacity, and soon came the announcement of the organization of 
the " Kirtland Safety Society Bank," with an alleged capital of 
$4,000,000. The articles of agreement had been drawn up on 
November 2, 1836, and Oliver Cowdery had been sent to Philadel- 
phia to get the plates for the notes at the same time that Orson 
Hyde set out to the state capital to secure a charter. Cowdery 
took no chances of failure, and he came back not only with a 
plate, but with $200,000 in printed bills. To avoid the inconven- 
ience of having no charter, the members of the Safety Society met 
on January 2, 1837, and reorganized under the name of the " Kirt- 
land Society Anti-banking Company," and, in the hope of placing 
the bills within the law (or at least beyond its reach), the word 
" Bank " was changed with a stamp so that it read " Anti-BANK-ing 
Co.," as in the facsimile here presented. 

W. Harris thus describes the banking scheme: — 

" Subscribers for stock were allowed to pay the amount of their subscriptions 
in town lots at five or six times their real value ; others paid in personal property 
at a high valuation, and some were paid in cash. When the notes were first 
issued they were current in the vicinity, and Smith took advantage of their credit 
to pay off with them the debts he and his brethren had contracted in the neigh- 
borhood for land, etc. The Eastern creditors, however, refused to take them. 
This led to the expedient of exchanging them for the notes of other banks. 



1 The Return, July, 1889. 



SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES 



149 



Accordingly, the Elders were sent into the country to barter off Kirtland money, 
which they did with great zeal, and continued the operation until the notes were 
not worth twelve and a half cents to the doliar. ,1 1 

Just how much of this currency was issued the records do not 
show. Hall says that Brigham Young, who had joined the flock 
at Kirtland, disposed of $10,000 worth of it in the States, and that 
Smith and other church officers reaped a rich harvest with it in 
Canada, explaining, " The credit of the bank here was good, even 
high." 2 Kidder quotes a gentleman living near Kirtland who said 
that the cash capital paid in was only about $5000, and that they 
succeeded in floating from $50,000 to $100,000. Ann Eliza, Brig- 
ham's "wife No. 19," says that her father invested everything he 
had but his house and shop in the bank, and lost it all. 

Cyrus Smalling, one of the Seventy at Kirtland, wrote an 
account of Kirtland banking operations under date of March 10, 
1 84 1, in which he said that Smith and his associates collected 
about $6000 in specie, and that when people in the neighborhood 
went to the bank to inquire about its specie reserve, " Smith had 
some one or two hundred boxes made, and gathered all the lead 
and shot the village had, or that part of it that he controlled, and 
filled the boxes with lead, shot, etc., and marked them $1000 each. 
Then, when they went to examine the vault, he had one box on a 
table partly filled for them to see ; and when they proceeded to 
the vault, Smith told them that the church had $200,000 in 
specie ; and he opened one box and they saw that it was silver ; 
and they were seemingly satisfied, and went away for a few days 
until the elders were packed off in every direction to pass their 
paper money." 3 

Smith believed in specie payments to his bank, whatever might 
be his intentions as regards the redemption of his notes, for, in 
the Messenger and Advocate (pp. 441-443), following the by-laws 
of the Anti-banking Company, was printed a statement signed by 
him, saying : — 

"We want the brethren from abroad to call on us and take stock in the 
Safety Society, and we would remind them of the sayings of the Prophet Isaiah 
contained in the 60th chapter, and more particularly in the 9th and 17th verses 
which are as follows : — 

1 " Mormonism Portrayed," p. 31. 

2 "Abominations of Mormonism Exposed" (1852), pp. 19, 20. 

3 "Mormons; or Knavery Exposed " (1841). 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" ' Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring 
thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the 
Lord thy God.' 

" 1 For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver,' etc." 

The Messenger and Advocate (edited by W. A. Cowdery), of 
July, 1837, contained a long article on the bank and its troubles, 
pointing out, first, that the bank was opened without a charter, 
being " considered a kind of joint stock association," and that 
" the private property of the stockholders was holden in propor- 
tion to the amount of their subscriptions for the redemption of 
the paper," and also that its notes were absolutely void under the 
state law. The editor goes on to say : — 

" Previously to the commencement of discounting by the bank, large debts 
had been contracted for merchandise in New York and other cities, and large 
contracts entered into for real estate in this and adjoining towns ; some of them 
had fallen due and must be met, or incur forfeitures of large sums. These 
causes, we are bound to believe, operated to induce the officers of the bank to 
let out larger sums than their better judgments dictated, which almost invariably 
fell into or passed through the hands of those who sought our ruin. . . . Hun- 
dreds who were enemies either came or sent their agents and demanded specie, 
till the officers thought best to refuse payment." 

This subtle explanation of the suspension of specie payments 
is followed with a discussion of monopolies, etc., leading up to a 
statement of the obligations of the Mormons in regard to the dis- 
credited bank-notes, most of which were in circulation elsewhere. 
To the question, " Shall we unite as one man, say it is good, and 
make it good by taking it on a par with gold ? " he replies, " No," 
explaining that, owing to the fewness of the church members as 
compared with the world at large, "it must be confined in its 
circulation and par value to the limits of our own society." To 
the question, " Shall we then take it at its marked price for our 
property," he again replies, " No," explaining that their enemies 
had received the paper at a discount, and that, to receive it at 
par from them, would " give them voluntarily and with one eye 
open just that advantage over us to oppress, degrade and depress 
us." This combined financial and spiritual adviser closes his 
article by urging the brethren to set apart a portion of their time 
to the service of God, and a portion to " the study of the science 
of our government and the news of the day." 



SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES 151 

A card which appeared in the Messenger and Advocate of 
August, 1837, signed by Smith, warned "the brethren and friends 
of the church to beware of speculators, renegades, and gamblers 
who are duping the unwary and unsuspecting by palming upon 
them those bills, which are of no worth here." 

The actual test of the bank's soundness had come when a 
request was made for the redemption of the notes. The notes 
seem to have been accepted freely in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 
where it was taken for granted that a cashier and president who 
professed to be prophets of the Lord would not give countenance 
to bank paper of doubtful value. 1 When stories about the con- 
cern reached the Pittsburg banks, they sent an agent to Kirtland 
with a package of the notes for redemption. Rigdon loudly 
asserted the stability of the institution ; but when a request 
for coin was repeated, it was promptly refused by him on the 
ground that the bills were a circulating medium " for the accom- 
modation of the public," and that to call any of them in would 
defeat their object. 2 

Other creditors of the Mormons were now becoming active in 
their demands. For failing to meet a note given to the bank at 
Painesville, Smith, Rigdon, and N. K. Whitney were put under 
$8000 bonds. Smith, Rigdon, and Cowdery were called into 
court as indorsers of paper for one of the Mormon firms, and 
judgment was given against them. To satisfy a firm of New 
York merchants the heads of the church gave a note for $4500 
secured by a mortgage on their interest in the new Temple and 
its contents. 3 The Egyptian mummies were especially excepted 
from this mortgage. Mother Smith describes how these relics 
were saved by " various stratagems" under an execution of $50 
issued against the prophet. 

The scheme of calling the bank corporation an "anti-banking" so- 
ciety did not save the officers from prosecution under the state law. 
Informers against violators of the banking law received in Ohio a 
share of the fine imposed, and this led to the filing of an informa- 
tion against Rigdon and Smith in March, 1837, Dv one S. D. 
Rounds, in the Geauga County Court, charging them with violating 
the law, and demanding a penalty of $1000. They were at once 

1 "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 71. 

2 " Early Days of Mormonism," p. 163. 3 Ibid., pp. 1 59-160. 



152 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



arrested and held in bail, and were convicted the following 
October. They appealed on the ground that the institution was 
an association and not a bank; but this plea was never ruled 
upon by the court, as the bank suspended payments and closed 
its doors in November, 1837, an d, before the appeal could be 
argued, Smith and Rigdon had fled from the state to Missouri. 



CHAPTER VI 

LAST DAYS AT KIRTLAND 

It is easy to understand that a church whose leaders had such 
views of financial responsibility as Smith's and Rigdon's, and 
whose members were ready to apostatize when they could not 
obtain credit at the prophet's store, was anything but a harmoni- 
ous body. Smith was not a man to maintain his own dignity or 
to spare the feelings of his associates. Wilford Woodruff, de- 
scribing his first sight of the prophet, at Kirtland, in 1834, sa id he 
found him with his brother Hyrum, wearing a very old hat and 
engaged in the sport of shooting at a mark. Woodruff accom- 
panied him to his house, where Smith at once brought out a wolf- 
skin, and said, " Brother Woodruff, I want you to help me tan 
this," and the two took off their coats and went to work at the 
skin. 1 Smith's contempt for Rigdon was never concealed. Writ- 
ing of the situation at Kirtland in 1833, he spoke of Rigdon as 
possessing " a selfishness and independence of mind which too 
often manifestly destroys the confidence of those who would lay 
down their lives for him." 2 Smith was in the habit of announcing, 
from his lofty pulpit in the Temple, " The truth is good enough 
without dressing up, but brother Rigdon will now proceed to dress 
it up." 3 Some of the new converts backed out as soon as they 
got a close view of the church. Elder G. A. Smith, a cousin of 
Joseph, in a sermon in Salt Lake City, in 1855, mentioned some 
incidents of this kind. One family, who had journeyed a long 
distance to join the church in Kirtland, changed their minds 
because Joseph's wife invited them to have a cup of tea " after 
the word of wisdom was given." Another family withdrew after 
seeing Joseph begin playing with his children as soon as he 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. ioi. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 584-585. 
8 LippincoW s Magazine, August, 1 880. 

153 



154 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



rested from the work of translating the Scriptures for the day. 
A Canadian ex-Methodist prayed so long at family worship at 
Father Johnson's that Joseph told him flatly "not to bray so 
much like a jackass." The prayer thereupon returned to Canada. 

But the discontented were not confined to new-comers. Jeal- 
ousy and dissatisfaction were constantly manifesting themselves 
among Smith's old standbys. Written charges made against 
Cowdery and David Whitmer, when they were driven out of Far 
West, Missouri, told them : " You commenced your wickedness 
by heading a party to disturb the worship of the Saints in the first 
day of the week, and made the house of the Lord in Kirtland to 
be a scene of abuse and slander, to destroy the reputation of those 
whom the church had appointed to be their teachers, and for no 
other cause only that you were not the persons." In more exact 
terms, their offence was opposition to the course pursued by 
Smith. During the winter and spring of 1837, these rebels in- 
cluded in their list F. G. Williams, of the First Presidency, Martin 
Harris, D. Whitmer, Lyman E. Johnson, P. P. Pratt, and W. E. 
McLellin. In May, 1837, a High Council was held in Kirtland to 
try these men. Pratt at once objected to being tried by a body of 
which Smith and Rigdon were members, as they had expressed 
opinions against him. Rigdon confessed that he could not con- 
scientiously try the case, Cowdery did likewise, Williams very 
properly withdrew, and "the Council dispersed in confusion." 1 
It was never reassembled, but the offenders were not forgotten, 
and their punishment came later. 

Mother Smith attributes much of the discord among the mem- 
bers at this time to " a certain young woman," an inmate of David 
Whitmer's house, who began prophesying with the assistance of 
a black stone. This seer predicted Smith's fall from office because 
of his transgressions, and that David Whitmer or Martin Harris 
would succeed him. Her proselytes became so numerous that a 
written list of them showed that "a great proportion of the church 
were decidedly in favor with the new party." 2 

While Smith was thus fighting leading members of his own 
church, he was called upon to defend himself against a serious 
charge in court. A farmer near Kirtland, named Grandison 



1 Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. io. 

2 " Biographical Sketches," p. 221. 



LAST DAYS AT KIRTLAND 



155 



Newell, received information from a seceding Mormon that Smith 
had directed the latter and another Mormon named Davis to 
kill Newell because he was a particularly open opponent of the 
new sect. The affidavit of this man set forth that he and Davis 
had twice gone to Newell's house to carry out Smith's order, and 
were only prevented by the absence of the intended victim. Smith 
was placed under $500 bonds on this charge, but on the formal hear- 
ing he was discharged on the ground of insufficient evidence. 1 

A rebellious spirit had manifested itself among the brethren in 
Missouri soon after Smith returned from his first visit to that state. 
W. W. Phelps questioned the prophet's " monarchical power and 
authority," and an unpleasant correspondence sprung up between 
them. As Smith did not succeed by his own pen in silencing his 
accusers, a conference of twelve high priests was called by him 
in Kirtland in January, 1833, which appointed Orson Hyde and 
Smith's brother Hyrum to write to the Missouri brethren. In this 
letter they were told plainly that, unless the rebellious spirit ceased, 
the Lord would seek another Zion. To Phelps the message was 
sent, " If you have fat beef and potatoes, eat them in singleness 
of heart, and not boast yourself in these things." It was, how- 
ever, as a concession to this spirit of complaint, according to 
Ferris, that Smith announced the " revelation " which placed the 
church in the hands of a supreme governing body of three. 

Smith himself furnishes a very complete picture of the dis- 
rupted condition of the Mormons in 1838, in an editorial in the 
Elders' Journal, dated August, of that year. The tone of the 
article, too, sheds further light on Smith's character. Referring 
to the course of " a set of creatures " whom the church had 
excluded from fellowship, he says they "had recourse to the 
foulest lying to hide their iniquity . . . ; and this gang of horse 
thieves and drunkards were called upon immediately to write their 
lives on paper." Smith then goes on to pay his respects to various 
officers of the church, all of whom, it should be remembered, held 
their positions through " revelation " and were therefore professedly 
chosen directly by God. 

Of a statement by Warren Parish, one of the Seventy and an 

1 Fanny Brewer of Boston, in an affidavit published in 1842, declared, " I am per- 
sonally acquainted with one of the employees, Davis by name, and he frankly acknowl- 
edged to me that he was prepared to do the deed under the direction of the prophet, 
and was only prevented by the entreaties of his wife." 



i 5 6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



officer of the bank, Smith says : " Granny Parish made such an 
awful fuss about what was conceived in him that, night after night 
and day after day, he poured forth his agony before all living, as 
they saw proper to assemble. For a rational being to have looked 
at him and heard him groan and grunt, and saw him sweat and 
struggle, would have supposed that his womb was as much swollen 
as was Rebecca's when the angel told her there were two nations 
there." He also accuses Parish of immorality and stealing money. 

Here is a part of Smith's picture of Dr. W. A. Cowdery, a 
presiding high priest : " This poor pitiful beggar came to Kirtland 
a few years since with a large family, nearly naked and destitute. 
It was really painful to see this pious Doctor's (for such he pro- 
fessed to be) rags flying when he walked upon the streets. He 
was taken in by us in this pitiful condition, and we put him into the 
printing-office and gave him enormous wages, not because he could 
earn it, but merely out of pity. ... A truly niggardly spirit mani- 
fested itself in all his meanness." 

Smith's old friend Martin Harris, now a high priest, and Cyrus 
Smalling, one of the Seventy, are lumped among Parish's " lackeys," 
of whom Smith says : " They are so far beneath contempt that a 
notice of them would be too great a sacrifice for a gentleman to 
make." Of Leonard Rich, one of the seven presidents of the 
seventy elders, Smith says that he " was generally so drunk that 
he had to support himself by something to keep from falling down." 
J. F. Boynton and Luke Johnson, two of the Twelve, are called 
" a pair of young blacklegs," and Stephen Burnett, an elder, is 
styled " a little ignorant blockhead, whose heart was so set on 
money that he would at any time sell his soul for $50, and then 
think he had made an excellent bargain." 

Smith's own personal character was freely attacked, and the 
subject became so public that it received notice in the Elders' Jour- 
nal. One charge was improper conduct toward an orphan girl whom 
Mrs. Smith had taken into her family. Smith's autobiography con- 
tains an account of a council held in New Portage, Ohio, in 1834, 
at which Rigdon accused Martin Harris of telling A. C. Russel that 
" Joseph drank too much liquor when he was translating the Book 
of Mormon," and Harris set up as a defence that "this thing oc- 
curred previous to the translating of the Book." 1 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 12. 



LAST DAYS AT KIRTLAND 



157 



There was a good deal of talk concerning a confession " about 
a girl," which Oliver Cowdery was reported to have said that Smith 
made to him. Denials of this for Cowdery appeared in the Elders' 
Journal of July, 1838, one man's statement ending thus, "Joseph 
asked if he ever said to him (Oliver) that he (Joseph) confessed to 
any one that he was guilty of the above crime ; and Oliver, after 
some hesitation, answered no." 

The Elders' Journal of August, 1838, contains a retraction by 
Parley P. Pratt of a letter he had written, in which he censured both 
Smith and Rigdon, " using great severity and harshness in regard to 
certain business transactions." In that letter Pratt confessed that 
"the whole scheme of speculation" in which the Mormon leaders 
were engaged was of the " devil," and he begged Smith to make 
restitution for having sold him, for $2000, three lots of land that did 
not cost Smith over $200. 

Not only was the moral character of Smith and other individual 
members of the church successfully attacked at this time, but the 
charge was openly made that polygamy was practised and sanc- 
tioned. In the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants," published in 
Kirtland in 1835, Section 10 1 was devoted to the marriage rite. It 
contained this declaration : " Inasmuch as this Church of Christ 
has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, 
we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and 
one woman one husband, except in case of death, when either is at 
liberty to marry again." The value of such a denial is seen in the 
ease with which this section was blotted out by Smith's later " reve- 
lation " establishing polygamy. 

An admission that even elders did practise polygamy at that time 
is found in a minute of a meeting of the Presidents of the Seventies, 
held on April 29, 1837, which made this declaration: " First, that 
we will have no fellowship whatever with any elder belonging to 
the Quorum of the Seventies, who is guilty of polygamy." 1 

Again: The Elders' Journal dated Far West, Missouri, 1838, 
contained a list of answers by Smith to certain questions which, 
in an earlier number, he had said were daily and hourly asked by 
all classes of people. Among these was the following : — 

" Q. Do the Mormons believe in having more wives than one ? A. No, 
not at the same time." (He condemns the plan of marrying within a few weeks 
or months of the death of the first wife.) 

1 Messenger and Advocate, p. 5 1 1. 



158 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The statement has been made that polygamy first suggested 
itself to Smith in Ohio, while he was translating the so-called 
"Book of Abraham" from the papyri found on the Egyptian 
mummies. This so-called translation required some study of the 
Old Testament, and it is not at all improbable that Smith's natural 
inclination toward such a doctrine as polygamy secured a founda- 
tion in his reading of the Old Testament license to have a plural- 
ity of wives. 

For the business troubles hanging over the community, Smith 
and Rigdon were held especially accountable. The flock had 
seen the funds confided by them to the Bishop invested partly in 
land that was divided among some of the Mormon leaders. Smith 
and Rigdon were provided with a house near the Temple, and a 
printing-office was established there, which was under Smith's 
management. Naturally, when the stock and notes of the bank 
became valueless, its local victims held its organizers responsible 
for the disaster. Mother Smith gives us an illustration of the 
depth of this feeling. One Sunday evening, while her husband 
was preaching at Kirtland, when Joseph was in Cleveland "on 
business pertaining to the bank," the elder Smith reflected sharply 
upon Warren Parish, on whom the Smiths tried to place the 
responsibility for the bank failure. Parish, who was present, 
leaped forward and tried to drag the old man out of the pulpit. 
Smith, Sr., appealed to Oliver Cowdery for help, but Oliver re- 
tained his seat. Then the prophet's brother William sprang to 
his father's assistance, and carried Parish bodily out of the church. 
Thereupon John Boynton, who was provided with a sword cane, 
drew his weapon and threatened to run it through the younger 
Smith. " At this juncture," says Mrs. Smith, " I left the house, 
not only terrified at the scene, but likewise sick at heart to see the 
apostasy of which Joseph had prophesied was so near at hand." 1 

Eliza Snow gives a slightly different version of the same out- 
break, describing its wind-up as follows : — 

" John Boynton and others drew their pistols and bowie knives and rushed 
down from the stand into the congregation, Boynton saying he would blow out 
the brains of the first man who dared lay hands on him. . . . Amid screams 
and shrieks, the policemen in ejecting the belligerents knocked down a stove 
pipe, which fell helter-skelter among the people ; but, although bowie knives and 



1 "Biographical Sketches," p. 221. 



LAST DAYS AT KIRTLAND 



159 



pistols were wrested from their owners and thrown hither and thither to prevent 
disastrous results, no one was hurt, and after a short but terrible scene to be 
enacted in a Temple of God. order was restored and the services of the day 
proceeded as usual." 1 

Smith made a stubborn defence of his business conduct. He 
attributed the disaster to the bank to Parish's peculation, and the 
general troubles of the church to "the spirit of speculation in lands 
and property of all kinds," as he puts it in his autobiography, 
wherein he alleges that " the evils were actually brought about by 
the brethren not giving heed to my counsel." If Smith gave any 
such counsel, it is unfortunate for his reputation that neither the 
church records nor his "revelations" contain any mention of it. 

The final struggle came in December, 1837, when Smith and 
Rigdon made their last public appearance in the Kirtland Temple. 
Smith was as bold and aggressive as ever, but Rigdon, weak from 
illness, had to be supported to his seat. An eye-witness of the 
day's proceedings says 2 that "the pathos of Rigdon's plea, and 
the power of his denunciation, swayed the feelings and shook the 
judgments of his hearers as never in the old days of peace, and, 
when he had finished and was led out, a perfect silence reigned 
in the Temple until its door had closed upon him forever. 
Smith made a resolute and determined battle ; false reports had 
been circulated, and those by whom the offence had come must 
repent and acknowledge their sin or be cut off from fellowship in 
this w r orld, and from honor and power in that to come." He not 
only maintained his right to speak as the head of the church, but, 
after the accused had partly presented their case, and one of 
them had given him the lie openly, he proposed a vote on their 
excommunication at once and a hearing of their further pleas at 
a later date. This extraordinary proposal led one of the accused to 
cry out, " You would cut a man's head off and hear him afterward." 
Finally it was voted to postpone the whole subject for a few days. 

But the two leaders of the church did not attend this adjourned 
session. Alarmed by rumors that Grandison Newell had secured 
a warrant for their arrest on a charge of fraud in connection with 
the affairs of the bank (unfounded rumors, as it later appeared), 
they fled from Kirtland on horseback on the evening of January 12, 

1 "Biography of Lorenzo Snow-," p. 20. 

2 " Early Days of Mormonism," Kennedy, p. 169. 



160 THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 

1838, and Smith never revisited that town. In his description of 
their flight, Smith explained that they merely followed the direc- 
tion of Jesus, who said, " When they persecute you in one city, 
flee ye to another." He describes the weather as extremely cold, 
and says, "We were obliged to secrete ourselves sometimes to 
elude the grasp of our pursuers, who continued their race more 
than two hundred miles from Kirtland, armed with pistols, etc., 
seeking our lives." There is no other authority for this story of 
an armed pursuit, and the fact seems to be that the non-Mormon 
community were perfectly satisfied with the removal of the mock 
prophet from their neighborhood. 

Although Kirtland continued to remain a Stake of the church, 
the real estate scheme of making it a big city vanished with the 
prophet. Foreclosures of mortgages now began ; the church print- 
ing-office was first sold out by the sheriff and then destroyed by 
fire, and the so-called reform element took possession of the Tem- 
ple. Rigdon had placed his property out of his own hands, one 
acre of land in Kirtland being deeded by him and his wife to their 
daughter. 

The Temple with about two acres of land adjoining was deeded 
by the prophet to William Marks in 1837, and in 1841 was re- 
deeded to Smith as trustee in trust for the church. In 1862 it was 
sold under an order of the probate court by Joseph Smith's admin- 
istrator, and conveyed the same day to one Russel Huntley, who, 
in 1873, conveyed it to the prophet's grandson, Joseph Smith, and 
another representative of the Reorganized Church (non-polyga- 
mist). The title of the latter organization was sustained in 1880 
by Judge L. S. Sherman, of the Lake County Court of Common 
Pleas, who held that, "The church in Utah has materially and 
largely departed from the faith, doctrines, laws, ordinances and 
usages of said original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day 
Saints, and has incorporated into its system of faith the doctrines 
of celestial marriage and a plurality of wives, and the doctrine of 
Adam-God worship, contrary to the laws and constitution of said 
original church," and that the Reorganized Church was the true 
and lawful successor to the original organization. At the general 
conference of the Reorganized Church, held at Lamoni, Iowa, in 
April, 1 90 1, the Kirtland district reported a membership of 423 
members. 



BOOK III 

IN MISSOURI 



CHAPTER I 
THE DIRECTIONS TO THE SAINTS ABOUT THEIR ZION 

The state of Missouri, to which the story of the Mormons is 
now transferred, was, at the time of its admission to the Union, in 
1821, called " a promontory of civilization into an ocean of sav- 
agery." Wild Indian tribes occupied the practically unexplored 
region beyond its western boundary, and its own western counties 
were thinly settled. Jackson County, which in 1900 had 195,193 
inhabitants, had a population of 2823 by the census of 1830, and 
neighboring counties not so many. It was not until 1830 that the 
first cabin of a white man was built in Daviess County. All this 
territory had been released from Indian ownership by treaty only 
a few years when the first Mormons arrived there. 

The white settler's house was a log hut, generally with a dirt 
floor, a mud-plastered chimney, and a window without glass, a 
board or quilt serving to close it in time of storm or severe cold. 
A fireplace, with a skillet and kettle, supplied the place of a well- 
equipped stove. Corn was the principal grain food, and wild game 
supplied most of the meat. The wild animals furnished clothing 
as well as food; for the pioneers could not afford to pay from 15 
to 25 cents a yard for calico, and from 25 to 75 cents for ging- 
ham. 1 Some persons indulged in homespun cloth for Sunday 
and festal occasions, but the common outside garments were 
made of dressed deerskins. Parley P. Pratt, in his autobiography, 

1 " When the merchants sold a calico or gingham dress pattern they threw in their 
profit by giving a spool of thread (two hundred yards), hooks and eyes and lining. In 
the thread business, however, it was only a few years after that thirty and fifty yard 
spools took the place of the two hundred yards.'' — " History of Daviess County." p. 161. 
M l6l 



162 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



speaks of passing through a settlement where " some families 
were entirely dressed in skins, without any other clothing, includ- 
ing ladies young and old." 

The pioneer agriculturist of those days not only lacked the 
transportation facilities and improved agricultural appliances which 
have assisted the developers of the Northwest, but they did not 
even understand the nature and capability of the soil. The new- 
comers in western Missouri looked on the rich prairie land as 
worthless, and they almost invariably directed their course to the 
timber, where the soil was more easily broken up, and material for 
buildings was available. The first attempts to plough the prairie 
sod were very primitive. David Dailey made the first trial in 
Jackson County with what was called a " barshear plough" (drawn 
by from four to eight yokes of oxen), the " shear" of which was 
fastened to the beam. This cut the sod in one direction pretty 
well, but when he began to cross-furrow, the sod piled up in front 
of the plough and stopped his progress. Determined to see what 
the soil would grow, he cut holes in the sod with an axe, and in 
these dropped his seed. The first sod was broken in Daviess 
County in 1834, with a plough made to order, "to see what the 
prairies amounted to in the way of raising a crop." Such was 
the country toward which the first Mormon missionaries turned 
their faces. 

We have seen that the first intimation in the Mormon records 
of a movement to the West was found in Smith's order to Oliver 
Cowdery in 1830 to go and establish the church among the La- 
manites (Indians), and that Rigdon expected that the church would 
remain in Ohio, when he wrote to his flock from Palmyra. The 
four original missionaries — Cowdery, P. P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, 
and Peterson — did not stop long in Kirtland, but, taking with 
them Frederick G. Williams, they pushed on westward to San- 
dusky, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, preaching to some Indians on 
the way, until they reached Independence, Jackson County, Mis- 
souri, early in 1831. That county forms a part of the western 
border of the state, and from 1832, until the railroad took the 
place of wagon trains, Independence was the eastern terminus of 
the famous Santa Fe trail, and the point of departure for many 
companies destined both for Oregon and California. Pratt, de- 
scribing their journey west of St. Louis, says: "We travelled on 



DIRECTIONS TO THE SAINTS ABOUT THEIR ZION 163 



foot some three hundred miles, through vast prairies and through 
trackless wilds of snow ; no beaten road, houses few and far be- 
tween. We travelled for whole days, from morning till night, 
without a house or fire. We carried on our backs our changes of 
clothing, several books, and corn bread and raw pork." 1 

The sole idea of these pioneers seemed to be to preach to the 
Indians. Arriving at Independence, Whitmer and Peterson went 
to work to support themselves as tailors, while Cowdery and Pratt 
crossed the border into the Indian country. The latter, however, 
were at once pronounced by the federal officers there to be vio- 
lators of the law which forbade the settlement of white men 
among the Indians, and they returned to Independence, and 
preached thereabout during the winter. Early in February the 
four decided that Pratt should return to Kirtland and make a report, 
and he did so, travelling partly on foot, partly on horseback, and 
partly by steamer. 

As early as March, 1830, Smith had conceived the idea (or 
some one else for him) of a gathering of the elect " unto one 
place " to prepare for the day of desolation (Sec. 29). In Octo- 
ber, 1830, the four pioneers were commanded to start " into the 
wilderness among the Lamanites," and on January 2, 1831, while 
Rigdon was visiting Smith in New York State, another " revela- 
tion" (Sec. 38) described the land of promise as "a land flowing 
with milk and honey, upon which there shall be no curse when 
the Lord cometh." This land they and their children were to 
possess, both "while the earth shall stand, and again in eternity." 
A "revelation" (Sec. 45), dated March 7, 1831, at Kirtland, called 
on the faithful to assemble and visit the Western countries, where 
they were promised an inheritance, to be called "the New 
Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for 
the saints of most High God." These things they were to "keep 
from going abroad into the world " for the present. 

The manner in which the elect were told by " revelation " that 
they should possess their land of promise has a most important 
bearing on the justification of the opposition which the Missourians 
soon manifested toward their new neighbors. In one of these 
"revelations," dated Kirtland, February, 183 1 (Sec. 42), Christ 
is represented as saying, " I will consecrate the riches of the Gen- 

1 "Autobiography of P. P. Pratt," p. 54. 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



tiles unto my people which are of the house of Israel." Another, 
in the following June (Sec. 52), which directed Smith's and 
Rigdon's trip, promised the elect, " If ye are faithful ye shall as- 
semble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land in Missouri, 
which is the land of your inheritance, which is now the land of your 
enemies." Another, given while Smith was in Missouri, in August, 
1831 (Sec. 59), promised to those "who have come up into this 
land with an eye single to My glory," that " they shall inherit the 
earth," and " shall receive for their reward the good things of the 
earth." On the same date the Saints were told that they should 
" open their hearts even to purchase the whole region of country 
as soon as time will permit, . . . lest they receive none inheritance 
save it be by the shedding of blood." It seems to have been thought 
wise to add to this last statement, after the return of the party to 
Ohio, and a "revelation" dated August, 183 1 (Sec. 63), was 
given out, stating that the land of Zion could be obtained only " by 
purchase or by blood," and " as you are forbidden to shed blood, 
lo, your enemies are upon you, and ye shall be scourged from city 
to city." 1 

As to their obligation to pay for any of the " good things " 
purchased of their enemies, a "revelation" dated September 11, 
183 1 (the month after the return from Missouri), gave this advice : — 

" Behold it is said in my laws, or forbidden, to get in debt to thine enemies ; 

" But behold it is not said at any time, that the Lord should not take when 
he pleased, and pay as seemeth him good. 

" Wherefore as ye are agents, and ye are on the Lord's errand ; and what- 
ever ye do according to the will of the Lord, it is the Lord's business, and it is 
the Lord's business to provide for his Saints in these last days, that they may 
obtain an inheritance in the land of Zion." — "Book of Commandments," Chap. 
65. 

1 Tullidge, in his " History of Salt Lake City" (1886), defining the early Mormon 
view of their land rights, after quoting Brigham Young's declaration to the first arrivals 
in Salt Lake Valley, that he (or the church) had " no land to sell," but " every man 
should have his land measured out to him for city and family purposes," says: "Young 
could with absolute propriety give the above utterances on the land question. In the 
early days of the church they applied to land not only owned by the United States, but 
within the boundaries of states of the Union." After quoting from the above-cited 
" revelation " the words " save they be by the shedding of blood," he explains, " The 
latter clause of the quotation signifies that the Mormon prophet foresaw that, unless his 
disciples purchased ' this whole region of country ' of the unpopulated Far West of that 
period, the land question held between them and anti-Mormons would lead to the shed- 
ding of blood, and that they would be in jeopardy of losing their ' inheritance,' and this 
was realized." 



DIRECTIONS TO THE SAINTS ABOUT THEIR ZION 165 

In the modern version of this " revelation " to be found in Sec. 
64 of the " Doctrine and Covenants," the latter part of this 
declaration is changed to read, " And he hath set you to provide 
for his saints in these last days," etc. 

So eager were the Saints to occupy their land of Zion, when the 
movement started, that the word of " revelation" was employed to 
give warning against a hasty rush to the new possessions, and to 
establish a certain supervision of the emigration by the Bishop 
and other agents of the church. Notwithstanding this, the rush 
soon became embarrassing to the church authorities in Missouri, 
and a modified view of the Lord's promise was thus stated in the 
Evening arid Morning Star of July, 1832, "Although the Lord 
has said that it is his business to provide for the Saints in these 
last days, he is not bound to do so unless we observe his sayings 
and keep them." Saints in the East were warned against giving 
away their property before moving, and urged not to come to Mis- 
souri without some means, and to bring with them cattle and im- 
proved breeds of sheep and hogs, with necessary seeds. 



CHAPTER II 



SMITH'S FIRST VISITS TO MISSOURI — FOUNDING THE CITY 
AND THE TEMPLE 

On June 7, 183 1, a "revelation" was given out (Sec. 52) an- 
nouncing that the next conference would be held in the promised 
land in Missouri, and directing Smith and Rigdon to go thither, and 
naming some thirty elders, including John Corrill, David Whitmer, 
P. P. and Orson Pratt, Martin Harris, and Edward Partridge, who 
should also make the trip, two by two, preaching by the way. Booth 
says : " Only about two weeks were allowed them to make prepara- 
tions for the journey, and most of them left what business they had 
to be closed by others. Some left large families, with the crops 
upon the ground." 1 

Smith's party left Kirtland on June 19, and arrived at Indepen- 
dence in the following month, journeying on foot after reaching 
St. Louis, a distance of about three hundred miles. Smith was de- 
lighted with the new country, with " its beautiful rolling prairies, 
spread out like real meadows ; the varied timber of the bottoms ; 
the plums and grapes and persimmons and the flowers ; the rich soil, 
the horses, cattle, and hogs, and the wild game. . . . The season is 
mild and delightful nearly three quarters of the year, and as the 
land of Zion is situated at about equal distances from the Atlantic 
and Pacific Oceans, as well as from the Alleghany and Rocky 
Mountains, it bids fair to become one of the most blessed places on 
the earth." 2 The town of Independence then consisted of a brick 
courthouse, two or three stores, and fifteen or twenty houses, 
mostly of logs. 

The usual "revelation" came first (Sec. 57), announcing that 
"this is the land of promise and the place for the City of Zion," 
with Independence as its centre, and the site of the Temple a lot 

1 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled." 

2 Smith's "Autobiography," Millennial Star, Vol. XIV. 

166 



SMITH'S FIRST VISITS TO MISSOURI 



near the courthouse. It was also declared that the land should be 
purchased by the Saints, " and also every tract lying westward, even 
unto the line running directly between Jew and Gentile " (whatever 
that might mean), " and also every tract bordering by the prairies." 
Sidney Gilbert was ordered to "plant himself " there, and establish 
a store, "that he might sell goods without fraud," to obtain money 
for the purchase of land. Edward Partridge was " to divide the 
Saints their inheritance," and W. W. Phelps 1 and Cowdery were 
to be printers to the church. 

Marvellous stories were at once circulated of the grandeur that 
was to characterize the new city, of the wealth that would be gath- 
ered there by the faithful who would survive the speedy destruction 
of the wicked, and of the coming of the lost tribes of Israel, who 
had been located near the north pole, where they had become very 
rich. While not tracing these declarations to Smith himself, Booth, 
who was one of the party, says that they were told by persons in 
daily intercourse with him. It is doing the prophet no injustice to 
say that they bear his imprint. 

The laying of the foundation of the City of Zion was next in 
order. Rigdon delivered an address in consecrating the ground, in 
which he enjoined them to obey all of Smith's commands. A small 
scrub oak tree was then cut down and trimmed, and twelve men, 
representing the Apostles, conveyed it to a designated place. 
Cowdery sought out the best stone he could find for a corner-stone, 
removed a little earth, and placed the stone in the excavation, de- 
livering an address. One end of the oak tree was laid on this stone, 
" and there," says Booth, " was laid down the first stone and stick 
which are to form an essential part of the splendid City of Zion." 

The next day the site of the Temple was consecrated, Smith 
laying the corner-stone. When the ceremonies were over, the spot 
was merely marked by a sapling, from two sides of which the bark 
was stripped, one side being marked with a "T " for Temple, and 
the other with " zom," which Smith stated stood for " Zomas," the 
original of Zion. At the foot of this sapling lay the corner-stone 
— "a small stone, covered over with bushes." 

Such ceremonies might have been viewed with indulgence if 

1 Phelps came from Canandaigua, New York, where, Howe says, he was an avowed 
infidel. He had been prominent in politics and had edited a party newspaper. Disap- 
pointed in his political ambition, he threw in his lot with the new church. 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



conducted in some suburb of Kirtland. But when men had trav- 
elled hundreds of miles at Smith's command, suffering personal 
privations as well as submitting to pecuniary sacrifices, it was a 
severe test of their faith to have two small trees and two round 
stones in the wilderness offered to them as the only tangible indi- 
cations of a land of plenty. Rigdon expressed dissatisfaction with 
the outcome, as we have seen ; Booth left the church as soon as 
he got back to Ohio ; members of the party called Cowdery and 
Smith imperious, and the prophet and Rigdon incurred the charge 
of " excessive cowardice " on the way. 

Smith made a second trip to Independence, leaving Ohio on 
April 2, 1832, and arriving there on his return the following June. 
His stay in Missouri this time was marked by nothing more impor- 
tant than his acknowledgment as President of the high priesthood 
by a council of the church there, and a " revelation " which declared 
that Zion's " borders must be enlarged, her Stakes must be strength- 
ened." 



CHAPTER III 



THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY — THE ARMY OF 

ZION 

The efforts of the church leaders to check too precipitate an 
emigration to the new Zion were not entirely successful, and, 
according to the Evening and Morning Star of July, 1833, the 
Mormons with their families then numbered more than twelve 
hundred, or about one-third of the total population of the county. 
The elders had been pushing their proselyting work throughout 
the States and in Canada, and the idea of a land of plenty appealed 
powerfully to the new believers, and especially to those of little 
means. The branch of the church established at Colesville, New 
York, numbering about sixty members, emigrated in a body and 
settled twelve miles from Independence. Other settlements were 
made in the rural districts, and the non-Mormons began to be 
seriously exercised over the situation. The Saints boasted openly 
of their future possession of the land, without making clear their 
idea of the means by which they would obtain title to it. An 
open defiance in thQ name of the church appeared in an article 
in the Evening and Morning Star for July, 1833, which contained 
this declaration : — 

" No matter what our ideas or notions may be on the subject ; no matter 
what foolish report the wicked may circulate to gratify an evil disposition ; the 
Lord will continue to gather the righteous and destroy the wicked, till the sound 
goes forth, it is finished." 

With even greater fatuity came the determination to publish 
the prophet's " revelations " in the form of the " Book of Com- 
mandments." Of the effect of this publication David Whitmer 
says, " The main reason why the printing-press [at Independence] 
was destroyed, was because they published the ' Book of Com- 
mandments.' It fell into the hands of the world, and the people 
of Jackson County saw from the revelations that they were con- 

169 



170 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



sidered intruders upon the Land of Zion, as enemies of the church, 
and that they should be cut off out of the Land of Zion and sent 
away." 1 

Corrill says of the causes of friction between the Mormons 
and their neighbors : 2 — 

" The church got crazy to go up to Zion, as it was then called. The rich 
were afraid to send up their money to purchase lands, and the poor crowded up 
in numbers, without having any places provided, contrary to the advice of the 
Bishop and others, until the old citizens began to be highly displeased. They 
saw their country filling up with emigrants, principally poor. They disliked their 
religion, and saw also that, if let alone, they would in a short time become a 
majority, and of course rule the county. The church kept increasing, and the 
old citizens became more and more dissatisfied, and from time to time offered to 
sell their farms and possessions, but the Mormons, though desirous, were too 
poor to purchase them." 3 

The active manifestation of hostility toward the new-comers 
by the residents of Jackson County first took shape in the spring 
of 1832, in the stoning of Mormon houses at night and the break- 
ing of windows. Soon afterward a county meeting was called to 
take measures to secure the removal of the Mormons from that 
county, but nothing definite was done. The burning of haystacks, 
shooting into houses, etc., continued until July, 1833, when the 
Mormon opponents circulated a statement of their complaints, 
closing with a call for a meeting in the courthouse at Indepen- 
dence, on Saturday, July 20. The text of this manifesto, which is 
important as showing the spirit as well as the precise grounds of 
the opposition, is as follows : — 

" We, the undersigned, citizens of Jackson County, believing that an impor- 
tant crisis is at hand, as regards our civil society, in consequence of a pretended 
religious sect of people that have settled, and are still settling, in our county, styl- 
ing themselves Mormons, and intending, as we do, to rid our society, ' peaceably 
if we can, forcibly if we must ' ; and believing as we do, that the arm of the civil 
law does not afford us a guarantee, or at least, a sufficient one, against the evils 
which are now inflicted upon us, and seem to be increasing, by the said religious 
sect, we deem it expedient and of the highest importance to form ourselves into 
a company for the better and easier accomplishment of our purpose — a purpose, 

1 "Address to All Believers in Christ," p. 54. 

2 Corrill's " Brief History of the Church," p. 19. 

3 After the survey of Jackson County, Congress granted to the state of Missouri a 
large tract of land, the sale of which should be made for educational purposes, and the 
Mormons took title to several thousand acres of this, west of Independence. 



THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY 171 



which we deem it almost superfluous to say, is justified as well by the law of 
nature, as by the law of self preservation. 

" It is more than two years since the first of these fanatics, or knaves, (for one 
or the other they undoubtedly are,) made their first appearance amongst us, and, 
pretending as they did, and now do, to hold personal communication and con- 
verse face to face with the Most High God ; to receive communications and 
revelations direct from heaven ; to heal the sick by laying on hands ; and, in 
short, to perform all the wonder-working miracles wrought by the inspired 
Apostles and Prophets of old. 

" We believed them deluded fanatics, or weak and designing knaves, and 
that they and their pretensions would soon pass away ; but in this we were 
deceived. The arts of a few designing leaders amongst them have thus far 
succeeded in holding them together as a society ; and, since the arrival of the 
first of them, they have been daily increasing in numbers ; and if they had been 
respectable citizens in society, and thus deluded, they would have been entitled 
to our pity rather than our contempt and hatred ; but from their appearance, 
from their manners, and from their conduct since their coming among us, we 
have every reason to fear that, with but few exceptions, they were of the very 
dregs of that society from which they came, lazy, idle, and vicious. This we 
conceive is not idle assertion, but a fact susceptible of proof, for with these few 
exceptions above named, they brought into our county little or no property with 
them, and left less behind them, and we infer that those only yoked themselves 
to the Mormon car who had nothing earthly or heavenly to lose by the change ; 
and we fear that if some of the leaders amongst them had paid the forfeit due to 
crime, instead of being chosen ambassadors of the Most High, they would have 
been inmates of solitary cells. 

" But their conduct here stamps their characters in their true colors. More 
than a year since, it was ascertained that they had been tampering with our 
slaves, and endeavoring to rouse dissension and raise seditions amongst them. 
Of this their Mormon leaders were informed, and they said they would deal with 
any of their members who should again in like case offend. But how specious 
are appearances. In a late number of the Star, published in Independence by 
the leaders of the sect, there is an article inviting free negroes and mulattoes 
from other states to become Mormons, and remove and settle among us. This 
exhibits them in still more odious colors. It manifests a desire on the part of 
their society to inflict on our society an injury, that they knew would be to us 
entirely insupportable, and one of the surest means of driving us from the county ; 
for it would require none of the supernatural gifts that they pretend to, to see 
that the introduction of such a caste amongst us would corrupt our blacks, and 
instigate them to bloodshed. 

" They openly blaspheme the Most High God, and cast contempt on His 
holy religion, by pretending to receive revelations direct from heaven, by pre- 
tending to speak unknown tongues by direct inspirations, and by divers pretences, 
derogatory of God and religion, and to the utter subversion of human reason. 

" They declare openly that their God hath given them this county of land,, 
and that sooner or later they must and will have the possession of our lands for 



172 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



an inheritance ; and, in fine, they have conducted themselves on many other 
occasions in such a manner that we believe it a duty we owe to ourselves, our 
wives, and children, to the cause of public morals, to remove them from among 
us, as we are not prepared to give up our pleasant places and goodly possessions 
to them, or to receive into the bosom of our families, as fit companions for our 
wives and daughters, the degraded and corrupted free negroes and mulattoes that 
are now invited to settle among us. 

" Under such a state of things, even our beautiful county would cease to be a 
desirable residence, and our situation intolerable! We, therefore, agree that, if 
after timely warning, and receiving an adequate compensation for what little 
property they cannot take with them, they refuse to leave us in peace, as they 
found us — we agree to use such means as may be sufficient to remove them, and 
to that end we each pledge to each other our bodily powers, our lives, fortunes, 
and sacred honors. 

" We will meet at the court-house, at the Town of Independence, on Saturday 
next, the 20th inst., to consult ulterior movements." 1 

Some hundreds of names were signed to this call, and the 
meeting of July 20 was attended by nearly five hundred persons. 
There is no doubt that it was a representative county gathering. 
P. P. Pratt says that the anti-Mormon organization, which he calls 
" outlaws," was " composed of lawyers, magistrates, county officers, 
civil and military, religious ministers, and a great number of the 
ignorant and uninformed portion of the population." 2 The lan- 
guage of the address adopted shows that skilled pens were not 
wanting in its preparation. 

The first business of the meeting was the appointment of a 
committee to prepare an address stating the grievances of the 
people with somewhat greater fulness than the manifesto above 
quoted. Like the latter, it conceded at the start that there was 
no law under which the object in view could be obtained. It char- 
acterized the Mormons as but little above the negroes as regards 
property or education ; charged them with having exerted a " cor- 
rupting influence " on the slaves ; 3 asserted that even the more 

1 Evening and Morni?ig Star, p. 227; Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 516. 

2 Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 103. 

3 The Mormons never hesitated to change their position on the slavery question. 
An elder's address, published in the Evening and Morning Star of July, 1833, said : "As 
to slaves, we have nothing to say. In connection with the wonderful events of this age, 
much is doing toward abolishing slavery and colonizing the blacks in Africa." Three 
years later, in April, 1836, the Messenger and Advocate published a strong proslavery 
article, denying the right of the people of the North to interfere with the institution, and 
picturing the happy condition of the slaves. Orson Hyde, in the Frontier Guardian in 
1850 (quoted in the Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, p. 63), said: "When a man in the 



THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY 



173 



intelligent boasted daily to the Gentiles that the Mormons would 
appropriate their lands for an inheritance, and that their news- 
paper organ taught them that the lands were to be taken by the 
sword. Noting the rapid increase in the immigration of members 
of the new church, the address, looking to a near day when they 
would be in a majority in the county, asked : "What would be the 
state of our lives and property in the hands of jurors and wit- 
nesses who do not blush to declare, and would not upon occasion 
hesitate to swear, that they have wrought miracles, and have been 
the subjects of miraculous and supernatural cures, have conversed 
with God and his angels, and possess and exercise the gifts of 
divination and of unknown tongues, and are fired with the pros- 
pect of obtaining inheritances without money and without price, 
may be better imagined than described." That this apprehension 
was not without grounds will be seen when we come to the admin- 
istration of justice in Nauvoo and in Salt Lake City. 
The address closed with these demands : — 

" That no Mormon shall in future move and settle in this county. 

" That those now here, who shall give a definite pledge of their intention 
within a reasonable time to remove out of the county, shall be allowed to remain 
unmolested until they have sufficient time to sell their property and close their 
business without any material sacrifice. 

" That the editor of the Star (W. W. Phelps) be required forthwith to close 
his office and discontinue the business of printing in this county ; and, as to all 
other stores and shops belonging to the sect, their owners must in every case 
strictly comply with the terms of the second article of this declaration ; and, 
upon failure, prompt and efficient measures will be taken to close the same. 

" That the Mormon leaders here are required to use their influence in pre- 
venting any further emigration of their distant brethren to this county, and to 
counsel and advise their brethren here to comply with the above regulations. 

" That those who fail to comply with the requisitions be referred to those 
of their brethren who have the gifts of divination and of unknown tongues, to 
inform them of the lot that awaits them." 1 

Southern states embraces our faith and is the owner of slaves, the church says to him, 
' If your slaves wish to remain with you, and to go with you, put them not away; but if 
they choose to leave you, and are not satisfied to remain with you, it is for you to sell 
them or to let them go free, as your own conscience may direct you. The church on 
this point assumes not the responsibility to direct.' " Horace Greeley quoted Brigham 
Young as saying to him in Salt Lake City, " We consider slavery of divine institution 
and not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham shall have been removed 
from his descendants" ("Overland Journey," p. 211). 
1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 487-489. 



174 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



A recess of two hours was taken in which to permit a com- 
mittee of twelve to call on Bishop Partridge, Phelps, and Gilbert, 
and present these terms. This committee reported that these men 
" declined giving any direct answer to the requisitions made of 
them, and wished an unreasonable time for consultation, not only 
with their brethren here, but in Ohio." The meeting thereupon 
voted unanimously that the Star printing-office should be razed to 
the ground, and the type and press be " secured." 

A report of the action of this meeting and its result was pre- 
pared by the chairman and two secretaries, and printed over their 
signatures in the Western Monitor of Fayette, Missouri, on August 
2, 1833, and it is transferred to Smith's autobiography. It agrees 
with the Mormon account set forth in their later petition to Gover- 
nor Dunklin. It particularized, however, that the Mormon leaders 
asked the committee first for three months, and then for ten days, 
in which to consider the demands, and were told that they could 
have only fifteen minutes. 

What happened next is thus set forth in the chairman's re- 
port : — 

" Which resolution [for the razing of the Star office] was with the utmost order 
and the least noise and disturbance possible, forthwith carried into execution, as 
also some other steps of a similar tendency ; but no blood was spilled nor any blows 
inflicted." 

Mobs do not generally act with the " utmost order," and this one 
was not an exception to the rule, as an explanation of the " other 
steps " will make clear. The first object of attack was the printing- 
office, a two-story brick building. This was demolished, causing a 
loss of $6000, according to the Mormon claims. The mob next 
visited the store kept by Gilbert, but refrained from attacking it on 
receiving a pledge that the goods would be packed for removal by 
the following Tuesday. They then called at the houses of some of 
the leading Mormons, and conducted Bishop Partridge and a man 
named Allen to the public square. Partridge told his captors that 
the saints had been subjected to persecution in all ages ; that he was 
willing to suffer for Christ's sake, but that he would not consent to 
leave the country. Allen refused either to agree to depart or to 
deny the inspiration of the Mormon Bible. Both men were then 
relieved of their hats, coats, and vests, daubed with tar, and decorated 



THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY 175 



with feathers. This ended the proceedings of that day, and an ad- 
journment was announced until the following Tuesday. 

On Tuesday, July 23 (the date of the laying of the corner-stone 
of the Kirtland Temple), the Missourians gathered again in the town, 
carrying a red flag and bearing arms. The Mormon statement to 
Governor Dunklin says, "They proceeded to take some of the 
leading elders by force, declaring it to be their intention to whip 
them from fifty to five hundred lashes apiece, to demolish their 
dwelling houses, and let their negroes loose to go through our planta- 
tions and lay open our fields for the destruction of our crops." 1 
The official report of the officers of the meeting 2 says that, when 
the chairman had taken his seat, a committee was appointed to 
wait on the Mormons at the request of the latter. 

As a result of a conference with this committee, a written agree- 
ment was entered into, signed by the committee and the Mormons 
named in it, to this effect : That Oliver Cowdery, W. W. Phelps, 
W. E. McLellin, Edward Partridge, John Wright, Simeon Carter, 
Peter and John Whitmer, and Harvey Whitlock, with their families, 
should move from the county by January 1 next, and use their in- 
fluence to induce their fellow-Mormons in the county to do likewise 
— one half by January 1 and all by April 1 — and to prevent fur- 
ther immigration of the brethren ; John Corrill and A. S. Gilbert to 
remain as agents to wind up the business of the society, Gilbert to 
be allowed to sell out his goods on hand ; no Mormon paper to be 
published in the county ; Partridge and Phelps to be allowed to go 
and come after January 1, in winding up their business, if their fam- 
ilies were removed by that time ; the committee pledging themselves 
to use their influence to prevent further violence, and assuring Phelps 
that " whenever he was ready to move, the amount of all his losses 
[on the printing-house] should be paid to him by the citizens." In 
view of this arrangement there was no further trouble for more than 
two months. 

The Mormon leaders had, however, no intention of carrying out 
their part of this undertaking. Corrill, in a letter to Oliver Cowdery 
written in December, 1833, said that the agreement was made, 

1 Greene, in his " Facts Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons from the State 
of Missouri" (1839), says that the mob seized a number of Mormons and, at the muzzle 
of their guns, compelled them to confess that the Mormon Bible was a fraud. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 500. 



176 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" supposing that before the time arrived the mob would see their 
error and stop the violence, or that some means might be employed 
so that we could stay in peace." 1 Oliver Cowdery was sent at once 
to Kirtland to advise with the church officers there. On his arrival, 
early in August, a council was convened, and it was decided that 
legal measures should be taken to establish the rights of the Saints 
in Missouri. Smith directed that they should neither sell their lands 
nor move out of Jackson County, save those who had signed the 
agreement. 2 It was also decided to send Orson Hyde and John 
Gould to Missouri " with advice to the Saints in their unfortunate 
situation through the late outrage of the mob." 3 

To strengthen the courage of the flock in Missouri, Smith gave 
forth at Kirtland, under date of August 2, 1833, a "revelation" 
(Sec. 97), " in answer to our correspondence with the prophet," 
says P. P. Pratt, 4 in which the Lord was represented as saying, 
" Surely, Zion is the city of our God, and surely Zion cannot fail, 
neither be moved out of her place ; for God is there, and the hand 
of God is there, and he has sworn by the power of his might to be 
her salvation and her high tower." The same " revelation " directed 
that the Temple should be built speedily by means of tithing, and 
threatened Zion with pestilence, plague, sword, vengeance, and de- 
vouring fire unless she obeyed the Lord's commands. 

The outcome of all the deliberations at Kirtland was the send- 
ing of W. W. Phelps and Orson Hyde to Jefferson City with a long 
petition to Governor Dunklin, setting forth the charges of the Mis- 
sourians against the Mormons, and the action of the two meetings 
at Independence, and making a direct appeal to him for assistance, 
asking him to employ troops in their defence, in order that they 
might sue for damages, " and, if advisable, try for treason against 
the government." 

The governor sent them a written reply under date of October 
19, in which, after expressing sympathy with them in their troubles, 
he said : " I should think myself unworthy the confidence with 
which I have been honored by my fellow-citizens did I not promptly 
employ all the means which the constitution and laws have placed 
at my disposal to avert the calamities with which you are threatened. 

1 Evening and Morning Star, January, 1834 

2 Elder Williams's Letter, Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 519. 

3 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 504. 4 Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 100. 



THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY 177 



. . . No citizen, or number of citizens, have a right to take the re- 
dress of their grievances, whether real or imaginary, into their own 
hands. Such conduct strikes at the very existence of society." 
He advised the Mormons to invoke the laws in their behalf ; to se- 
cure a warrant from a justice of the peace, and so test the question 
"whether the law can be peaceably executed or not"; if not, it 
would be his duty to take steps to execute it. 

The Mormons and their neighbors were thus brought face to 
face in a manner which admitted of no compromise. The situa- 
tion naturally seemed rather a simple one to the governor, who 
was probably ignorant of the intentions and ambition of the Mor- 
mons. If he had understood the nature and weight of the objec- 
tions to them, he would have understood also that he could protect 
them in their possessions only by maintaining a military force. 

His letter gave the Mormons of Jackson County new courage. 
They had been maintaining a waiting attitude since the meeting 
of July 23, but now they resumed their occupations, and began to 
erect more houses, and to improve their places as if for a perma- 
nent stay, and meanwhile there was no cessation of the immigra- 
tion of new members from the East. Their leaders consulted four 
lawyers in Clay County, and arranged with them to look after their 
legal interests. 

This evident repudiation by the Mormons of their part of their 
agreement with the committee incensed the Jackson County people, 
and hostilities were resumed. On the night of October 31, a mob 
attacked a Mormon settlement called Big Blue, some ten miles west 
of Independence, damaged a number of houses, whipped some 
of the men, and frightened women and children so badly that 
they fled to the outlying country for hiding-places. On the night 
of November 1, Mormon houses were stoned in Independence, 
and the church store was broken into and its goods scattered 
in the street. The Mormons thereupon showed the governor's 
letter to a justice of the peace, and asked him for a warrant, 
but their accounts say that he refused one. When they took 
before the same officer a man whom they caught in the act of 
destroying their property, the justice not only refused to hold him, 
but granted a warrant in his behalf against Gilbert, Corrill, and 
two other Mormons for false imprisonment, and they were locked 
up. 1 Thrown on their own resources for defence, the Mormons 

1 Corrill's letter, Evening and Morning Star, January, 1834. 



i 7 8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



now armed themselves as well as they could, and established a 
night picket service throughout their part of the county. On 
Saturday night, November 2, a second attack was made by the 
mob on Big Blue and, the Mormons resisting, the first " battle " of 
this campaign took place. A sick woman received a pistol-shot 
wound in the head, and one of the Mormons a wound in the thigh. 
Parley P. Pratt and others were then sent to Lexington to procure 
a warrant from Circuit Judge Ryland, but, according to Pratt, he 
refused to grant one, and " advised us to fight and kill the outlaws 
whenever they came upon us." 1 

On Monday evening, November 4, a body of Missourians who 
had been visiting some of the Mormon settlements came in contact 
with a company of Mormons who had assembled for defence, and 
an exchange of shots ensued, by which a number on both sides 
were wounded, one of the Mormons dying the next day. 

These conflicts increased the excitement, and the Mormons, 
knowing how they were outnumbered, now realized that they could 
not stay in Jackson County any longer, and they arranged to move. 
At first they decided to make their new settlement only fifty miles 
south of Independence, in Van Buren County, but to this the 
Jackson County people would not consent. They therefore agreed 
to move north into Clay County, between which and Jackson 
County the Missouri River, which there runs east, formed the 
boundary. Most of them went to Clay County, but others scat- 
tered throughout the other near-by counties, whose inhabitants 
soon let them know that their presence was not agreeable. 

The hasty removal of these people so late in the season was 
accompanied by great personal hardships and considerable pecun- 
iary loss. The Mormons have stated the number of persons driven 
out at fifteen hundred, and the number of houses burned, before 
and after their departure, at from two hundred to three hundred. 
Cattle and household effects that could not be moved were sold for 
what they would bring, and those who took with them sufficient 
provisions for their immediate wants considered themselves fortu- 
nate. One party of six men and about one hundred and fifty 
women and children, panic-stricken by the action of the mob, wan- 
dered for several days over the prairie without even sufficient food. 
The banks of the Missouri River where the fugitives were ferried 

1 Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 105. 



THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY 



179 



across presented a strange spectacle. In a pouring rain the big 
company were encamped there on November 7, some with tents 
and some without any cover, their household goods piled up around 
them. Children were born in this camp, and the sick had to put up 
with such protection as could be provided. So determined were the 
Jackson County people that not a Mormon should remain among 
them, that on November 23 they drove out a little settlement of 
some twenty families living about fifteen miles from Independence, 
compelling women and children to depart on immediate notice. 

The Mormons made further efforts through legal proceedings 
to assert their rights in Jackson County, but unsuccessfully. The 
governor declared that the situation did not warrant him in call- 
ing out the militia, and referred them to the courts for redress for 
civil injuries. In later years they appealed more than once to 
the federal authorities at Washington for assistance in reestab- 
lishing themselves in Jackson County, 1 but were informed that 
the matter rested with the state of Missouri. Their future bitter- 
ness toward the federal government was explained on the ground 
of this refusal to come to their aid. 

Meanwhile Smith had been preparing to use the authority at 
his command to make good his predictions about the permanency 
of the church in the Missouri Zion. On December 6, 1833, he 
gave out a long " revelation " at Kirtland (Sec. 101), which created 
a great sensation among his followers. Beginning with the decla- 
ration that " I, the Lord," have suffered affliction to come on the 
brethren in Missouri "in consequence of their transgressions, 
envyings and stripes, and lustful and covetous desires," it went 
on to promise them as follows : — 

■•Zion shall not be moved out of her place, notwithstanding her children are 
scattered. . . . And. behold, there is none other place appointed than that which 
I have appointed : neither shall there be any other place appointed than that 
which I have appointed, for the work of the gathering of my saints, until the day 
cometh when there is found no more room for them." 

The "revelation" then stated the Lord's will " concerning the 
redemption of Zion" in the form of a long parable which con- 
tained these instructions : — 

1 James Hutchins, a resident of Wisconsin, addressed a long appeal " for justice " to 
President Grant in 1S76. asking him to reinstate the Mormons in the homes from which 
they had been driven. 



i8o 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" And go ye straightway into the land of my vineyard, and redeem my vine- 
yard, for it is mine, I have bought it with money. 

" Therefore get ye straightway unto my land ; break down the walls of mine 
enemies ; throw down their tower and scatter their watchmen ; 

" And inasmuch as they gather together against you, avenge me of mine ene- 
mies, that by and by I may come with the residue of mine house and possess the 
land. 1 ' 

This "revelation" was industriously circulated in printed form 
among the churches of Ohio and the East, and so great was the 
demand for copies that they sold for one dollar each. The only 
construction to be placed upon it was that Smith proposed to 
make good his predictions by means of an armed force led against 
the people of Missouri. This view soon had confirmation. 

The arrival of P. P. Pratt and Lyman Wight in Kirtland in 
February, 1834, was followed by a "revelation" (Sec. 103) promis- 
ing an outpouring of God's wrath on those who had expelled the 
brethren from their Missouri possessions, and declaring that "the 
redemption of Zion must needs come by power," and that Smith 
was to lead them, as Moses led the children of Israel. 

In obedience to this direction there was assembled a military 
organization, known in church history as " The Army of Zion." 
Recruiters, led by Smith and Rigdon, visited the Eastern states, 
and by May 1 some two hundred men had assembled at Kirtland 
ready to march to Missouri to aid their brethren. 1 

The Army of Zion, as it called itself, was not an impressive 
one in appearance. Military experience was not required of the 
recruits ; but no one seems to have been accepted who was not in 
possession of a weapon and at least $5 in cash. The weapons 
ranged from butcher knives and rusty swords to pistols, muskets, 
and rifles. Smith himself carried a fine sword, a brace of pistols 
(purchased on six months' credit), and a rifle, and had four horses 
allotted to him. He had himself elected treasurer of the expedi- 
tion, and to him was intrusted all the money of the men, to be dis- 
bursed as his judgment dictated. 

According to his own account, they were constantly threatened 
by enemies during their march ; but they paid no attention to them, 
knowing that angels accompanied them as protectors, " for we saw 
them." 

1 There are three detailed accounts of this expedition, one in Smith's autobiography, 
another in H. C. Kimball's journal in Times and Seasons, Vol. 6, and another in Howe's 
" Mormonism Unveiled," procured from one of the accompanying sharpshooters. 



THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY 



i8r 



As they approached Clay County a committee from Ray 
County called on them to inquire about their intention, and, when 
a few miles from Liberty, in Clay County, General Atchison and 
other Missourians met them and warned them not to defy popular 
feeling by entering that town. Accepting this advice, they took 
a circuitous route and camped on Rush Creek, whence Smith 
on June 25 sent a letter to General Atchison's committee saying 
that, in the interest of peace, "we have concluded that our com- 
pany shall be immediately dispersed." 

The night before this letter was sent, cholera broke out in the 
camp. Smith at once attempted to perform miraculous cures of 
the victims, but he found actual cholera patients very different to 
deal with from old women with imaginary ailments, or, as he puts 
it, " I quickly learned by painful experience that, when the great 
Jehovah decrees destruction upon any people, and makes known 
his determination, man must not attempt to stay his hand." 1 
There were thirteen deaths in camp, among the victims being 
Sidney Gilbert. 

Of course, some explanation was necessary to reconcile the 
prophet's surrender without a battle with the " revelation " which 
directed the army to march and promised a victory. This came in 
the shape of another "revelation " (Sec. 105) which declared that 
the immediate redemption of the people must be delayed because 
of their disobedience and lack of union (especially excepting him- 
self from this censure); that the Lord did not "require at their 
hands to fight the battles of Zion " ; that a large enough force 
had not assembled at the Lord's command, and that those who 
had made the journey were "brought thus far for a trial of their 
faith." The brethren were directed not to make boasts of the 
judgment to come on the Missourians, but to keep quiet, and 
"gather together, as much in one region as can be, consistently 
with the feelings of the people"; to purchase all the lands in 
Jackson County they could, and then " I will hold the armies of 
Israel guiltless in taking possession of their own lands, which 
they have previously purchased with their monies, and of throw- 
ing down the powers of mine enemies." But first the Lord's 
army was to become very great. 

It seems incredible that any set of followers could retain faith 
in " revelations " at once so conflicting and so nonsensical. 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 86. 



CHAPTER IV 



FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE JACKSON COUNTY 

PEOPLE 

Meanwhile, the Mormons in Clay County, with the assent of 
the natives there, had opened a factory for the manufacture of 
arms " to pay the Jackson mob in their own way," 1 and it was 
rumored that both sides were supplying themselves with cannon, 
to make the coming contest the more determined. Governor Dunk- 
lin, fearing a further injury to the good name of the state, wrote to 
Colonel J. Thornton urging a compromise, and on June 10 Judge 
Ryland sent a communication to A. S. Gilbert, asking him to call a 
meeting of Mormons in Liberty for a discussion of the situation. 

This meeting was held on June 16, and a committee from Jack- 
son County presented the following proposition : " That the value 
of the lands, and the improvements thereon, of the Mormons in 
Jackson County, be ascertained by three disinterested appraisers, 
representatives of the Mormons to be allowed freely to point out 
the lands claimed and the improvements ; that the people of Jack- 
son County would agree to pay the Mormons the valuation fixed 
by the appraisers, with one himdred per cent added, within thirty 
days of the award ; or, the Jackson County citizens would agree to 
sell out their lands in that county to the Mormons on the same 
terms." The Mormon leaders agreed to call a meeting of their 
people to consider this proposition. 

The fifteen Jackson County committeemen, it may be mentioned, 
in crossing the river on their way home, were upset, and seven of 
them were drowned, including their chairman, J. Campbell, who 
was reported to have made threats against Smith. The latter thus 
reports the accident in his autobiography, " The angel of God saw 
fit to sink the boat about the middle of the river, and seven out of 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 68. 
182 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE JACKSON COUNTY PEOPLE 183 



the twelve that attempted to cross were drowned, thus suddenly 
and justly went they to their own place by water." 

On June 21 the Mormons gave written notice to the Jackson 
County people that the terms proposed were rejected, and that 
they were framing " honorable propositions " on their own part, 
which they would soon submit, adding a denial of a rumor that 
they intended a hostile invasion. Their objection to the terms 
proposed was thus stated in an editorial in the Evening and Morn- 
ing Star of July, 1834, "When it is understood that the mob hold 
possession of a large quantity of land more than our friends, and 
that they only offer thirty days for the payment of the same, it 
will be seen that they are only making a sham to cover their past 
unlawful conduct." This explanation ignores entirely the offer of 
the Missourians to buy out the Mormons at a valuation double that 
fixed by the appraisers, and simply shows that they intended to 
hold to the idea that their promised Zion was in Jackson County, 
and that they would not give it up. 1 

On June 23 (the date of Smith's last quoted "revelation"), the 
Mormons presented their counter proposition in writing. It was 

1 The idea of returning to a Zion in Jackson County has never been abandoned by 
the Mormon church. Bishop Partridge took title to the Temple lot in Independence in 
his own name. In 1839, when the Mormons were expelled from the state, still believ- 
ing that this was to be the site of the New Jerusalem, he deeded sixty-three acres of land 
in Jackson County, including this lot, to three small children of Oliver Cowdery. In 
1848, seven years after Partridge's death, and when all the Cowdery grantees were dead, 
a man named Poole got a deed for this land from the heirs of the grantees, and subse- 
quent conveyances were made under Poole's deed. In 185 1 a branch of the church, 
under a title Church of Christ, known as Hendrickites, from Grandville Hendrick, its 
originator, was organized in Illinois, with a basis of belief which rejects most of the inno- 
vations introduced since 1835. Hendrick in 1864 was favored with a "revelation" 
which ordered the removal of his church to Jackson County. On arriving there differ- 
ent members quietly bought parts of the old Temple lot. In 1887 the sole surviving 
sister and heir of the Cowdery children executed a quit claim deed of the lot to Bishop 
Blakeslee of the Reorganized Church in Iowa, and that church at once began legal pro- 
ceedings to establish their title. Judge Philips, of the United States Circuit Court for the 
Western Division of Missouri, decided the case in March, 1894, in favor of the Reorgan- 
ized Church, but the United States Court of Appeals reversed this decision on the ground 
that the respondents had title through undisputed possession (" United States Court of 
Appeals Reports," Vol. XVII, p. 387). The Hendrickites in this suit were actively aided 
by the Utah Mormons, President Woodruff being among their witnesses. This Church 
of Christ has now a membership of less than two hundred. 

Two Mormon elders, describing their visit to Independence in 1888, said that they 
went to the Temple lot and prayed as follows : " O Lord, remember thy words, and let 
not Zion suffer forever. Hasten her redemption, and let thy name be glorified in the 
victory of truth and righteousness over sin and iniquity. Confound the enemies of the 
people and let Zion be free." — " Infancy of the Church," Salt Lake City, 1889. 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



that a board of six Mormons and six Jackson County non-Mormons 
should decide on the value of lands in that county belonging to 
"those men who cannot consent to live with us," and that they 
should receive this sum within a year, less the amount of damage 
suffered by the Mormons, the latter to be determined by the same 
persons. The Jackson County people replied that they would " do 
nothing like according to their last proposition," and expressed a 
hope that the Mormons " would cast an eye back of Clinton, to see 
if that is not a county calculated for them." Clinton was the 
county next north of Clay. 

Governor Dunklin, in his annual message to the legislature 
that year, expressed the opinion that " conviction for any violence 
committed against a Mormon cannot be had in Jackson County," 
and told the lawmakers it was for them to determine what amend- 
ments were necessary " to guard against such acts of violence for 
the future." The Mormons sent a petition in their own behalf to 
the legislature, which was presented by Corrill, but no action was 
taken. 



CHAPTER V 



IN CLAY, CALDWELL, AND DAVIESS COUNTIES 

The counties in which the Mormons settled after leaving Jack- 
son County were thinly populated at that time, Clay County having 
only 5338 inhabitants, according to the census of 1830, and Cald- 
well, Carroll, and Daviess counties together having only 6617 
inhabitants by the census of 1840. County rivalry is always a 
characteristic of our newly settled states and territories, and the 
Clay County people welcomed the Mormons as an addition to their 
number, notwithstanding the ill favor in which they stood with 
their southern neighbors. The new-comers at first occupied what 
vacant cabins they could find in the southern part of the county, 
until they could erect houses of their own, while the men obtained 
such employment as was offered, and many of the women sought 
places as domestic servants and school-teachers. The Jackson 
County people were not pleased with this friendly spirit, and they 
not only tried to excite trouble between the new neighbors, but 
styled the Clay County residents " Jack Mormons," a name applied 
in later years in other places to non-Mormons who were supposed 
to have Mormon sympathies. 

Peace was maintained, however, for about three years. But 
the Mormons grew in numbers, and, as the natives realized their 
growth, they showed no more disposition to be in the minority 
than did their southern neighbors. The Mormons, too, were with- 
out tact, and they did not conceal the intention of the church to 
possess the land. Proof of their responsibility for what followed 
is found in a remark of W. W. Phelps, in a letter from Clay County 
to Ohio in December, 1833, that "our people fare very well, and, 
when they are discreet, little or no persecution is felt." 1 

The irritation kept on increasing, and by the spring of 1836 
Clay County had become as hostile to the Mormons as Jackson 
County had ever been. In June, the course adopted in Jackson 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 646. 
185 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



County to get rid of the new-comers was imitated, and a public 
meeting in the court house at Liberty adopted resolutions 1 setting 
forth that civil war was threatened by the rapid immigration of 
Mormons ; that when the latter were received, in pity and kind- 
ness, after their expulsion across the river, it was understood that 
they would leave " whenever a respectable portion of the citizens 
of this county should require it," and that that time had now come. 
The reasons for this demand included Mormon declarations that 
the county was destined by Heaven to be theirs, opposition to 
slavery, teaching the Indians that they were to possess the land 
with the Saints, and their religious tenets, which, it was said, 
"always will excite deep prejudices against them in any populous 
country where they may locate." In explanations of the anti-Mor- 
mon feeling in Missouri frequent allusion is made to polygamous 
practices. This was not charged in any of the formal statements 
against them, and Corrill declares that they had done nothing 
there that would incriminate them under the law. The Mormons 
were urged to seek a new abiding-place, the territory of Wisconsin 
being recommended for their investigation. The resolutions con- 
fessed that " we do not contend that we have the least right, under 
the constitution and laws of the country, to expel them by force " ; 
but gave as an excuse for the action taken the certainty of an 
armed conflict if the Mormons remained. 'Newly arrived immi- 
grants were advised to leave immediately, non-landowners to follow 
as soon as they could gather their crops and settle up their busi- 
ness, and owners of forty acres to remain indefinitely, until they 
could dispose of their real estate without loss. 

The Mormons, on July I, adopted resolutions denying the 
charges against them, but agreeing to leave the county. The 
Missourians then appointed a committee to raise money to assist 
the needy Saints to move. Smith and his associates in Ohio had 
not at that time the same interest in a Zion in Missouri that they 
had three years earlier, and they only expressed sorrow over the 
new troubles, and advised the fugitives to stop short of Wisconsin 
if they could. An appeal was again made by the Missouri Mor- 
mons to the governor of that state, but he now replied that if they 
could not convince their neighbors of their innocence, "all I can 
say to you is that in this republic the vox populi is the vox dei" 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 763. 



IN CLAY, CALDWELL, AND DAVIESS COUNTIES 1 87 



The Mormons selected that part of Ray County from which 
Caldwell County was formed (just northeast of Clay County) for 
their new abode, and on their petition the legislature framed the 
new county for their occupancy. This was then almost unsettled 
territory, and the few inhabitants made no objection to the coming 
of their new neighbors. They secured a good deal of land, some 
by purchase, and some by entry on government sections, and began 
its improvement. Many of them were so poor that they had to 
seek work in the neighboring counties for the support of their 
families. Some of their most intelligent members afterward attrib- 
uted their future troubles in that state to their failure to keep 
within their own county boundaries. 

As the county seat they founded a town which they named Far 
West, and which soon presented quite a collection of houses, both 
log and frame, schools, and shops. Phelps wrote in the summer 
of 1837, "Land cannot be had around town now much less than 
$10 per acre." 1 There were practically no inhabitants but Mor- 
mons within fifteen or twenty miles of the town, 2 and the Saints 
were allowed entire political freedom. Of the county officers, two 
judges, thirteen magistrates, the county clerk, and all the militia 
officers were of their sect. They had credit enough to make nec- 
essary loans, and, says Corrill, "friendship began to be restored 
between them and their neighbors, the old prejudices were fast 
dying away, and they were doing well, until the summer of 1838." 

It was in January, 1838, that Smith fled from Kirtland. He 
arrived in Far West in the following March ; Rigdon was detained 
in Illinois a short time by the illness of a daughter. Smith's fam- 
ily went with him, and they were followed by many devoted adher- 
ents of the church, who, in order to pay church debts in Ohio and 
the East, had given up their property in exchange for orders on 
the Bishop at Far West. In other words, they were penniless. 

The business scandals in Ohio had not affected the reputation 
of the church leaders with their followers in Missouri (where the 
bank bills had not circulated), and Smith and Rigdon received a 
hearty welcome, their coming being accepted as a big step forward 
in the realization of their prophesied Zion. It proved, however, to 
be the cause of the expulsion of their followers from the state. 

1 Messenger and Advocate, July, 1837. 

2 Lee's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 53. 



CHAPTER VI 



RADICAL DISSENSIONS IN THE CHURCH — ORIGIN OF THE 
DANITES — TITHING 

While the church, in a material sense, might have been as 
prosperous as Corrill pictured, Smith, on his arrival, found it in the 
throes of serious internal discord. The month before he reached 
Far West, W. W. Phelps and John Whitmer, of the Presidency- 
there, had been tried before a general assembly of the church, 1 
and almost unanimously deposed on several charges, the principal 
one being a claim on their part to $2000 of the church funds which 
they had bound the Bishop to pay to them. Whitmer was also 
accused of persisting in the use of tea, coffee, and tobacco. T. B. 
Marsh, one of the Presidents pro tern, selected in their places, in a 
letter to the prophet on this subject, said : — 

" Had we not taken the above measures, we think that nothing could have 
prevented a rebellion against the whole High Council and Bishop ; so great was 
the disaffection against the Presidents that the people began to be jealous that 
the whole authorities were inclined to uphold these men in wickedness, and in a 
little time the church undoubtedly would have gone every man his own way, like 
sheep without a shepherd.'" 

On April 11, Elder Bronson presented nine charges against 
Oliver Cowdery to the High Council, which promptly found him 
guilty of six of them, viz. urging vexatious lawsuits against the 
brethren, accusing the prophet of adultery, not attending meeting, 
returning to the practice of law "for the sake of filthy lucre/' 
" disgracing the church by being connected with the bogus [counter- 
feiting] business, retaining notes after they had been paid," and 
generally " forsaking the cause of God." On this finding he was 
expelled from the church. Two days later David Whitmer was 
found guilty of unchristianlike conduct and defaming the prophet, 
and was expelled, and Lyman E. Johnson met the same fate. 2 

1 For the minutes of this General Assembly, and text of Marsh's letter, see Elders' 
Journal, July, 1838. 

2 For minutes of these councils, see Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, pp. 130-134. 

188 



RADICAL DISSENSIONS IN THE CHURCH 189 

Smith soon announced a " revelation " (Sec. 1 14), directing the 
places of the expelled to be filled by others. 

It was in the June following that the paper drawn up by Rig- 
don and signed by eighty-three prominent members of the church 
was presented to the recalcitrants, ordering them to leave the 
county, and painting their characters in the blackest hues. 1 This 
radical action did not meet the approval of the more conservative 
element, which included men like Corrill, and he soon announced 
that he was no longer a Mormon. Not long afterward Thomas B. 
Marsh, one of the original members of the High Council of Twelve 
in Missouri, and now President of the Twelve, and Orson Hyde, one 
of the original Apostles, also seceded, and both gave testimony 
about the Mormon schemes in Caldwell and Daviess Counties. 
Cowdery and Whitmer considered their lives in such danger that 
they fled on horseback at night, leaving their families, and after 
riding till daylight in a storm, reached the house of a friend, where 
they found refuge until their families could join them. 

The most important event that followed the expulsion of lead- 
ing members from the church by the High Council was the forma- 
tion of that organization which has been almost ever since known 
as the Danites, whose dark deeds in Nauvoo were scarcely more 
than hinted at, 2 but which, under Brigham Young's authority in 
Utah, became a band of murderers, ready to carry out the most 
radical suggestion which might be made by any higher authority 
of the church. 

Corrill, an active member of the church in Missouri, writing in 
1839 with the events fresh in his memory, said 3 that the members 
of the Danite society entered into solemn covenants to stand by one 
another when in difficulty, whether right or wrong, and to correct 
each other's wrongs among themselves, accepting strictly the man- 
dates of the Presidency as standing next to God. He explains 
that " many were opposed to this society, but such was their deter- 
mination and also their threatenings, that those opposed dare not 
speak their minds on the subject. ... It began to be taught that 
the church, instead of God, or, rather, the church in the hands of 

1 See p. 81 ante. For the full text of Rigdon's paper, see the "Correspondence, 
Orders, etc., in Relation to the Mormon Disturbances in Missouri," published by order 
of the Missouri legislature (1841). 

2 Lee's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 158. 

3 "Brief History of the Church," pp. 31, 32. 



V 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



God, was to bring about these things (judgments on the wicked), 
and I was told, but I cannot vouch for the truth of it, that some 
of them went so far as to contrive plans how they might scatter 
poison, pestilence, and disease among the inhabitants, and make 
them think it was judgments sent from God. I accused Smith 
and Rigdon of it, but they both denied it promptly." 

Robinson, in his reminiscences in the Return in later years, 
gave the same date of the organization of the Danites, and said 
that their first manifesto was the one directed against Cowdery, 
Whitmer, and others. 

We must look for the actual origin of this organization, how- 
ever, to some of the prophet's instructions while still at Kirtland. 
In his "revelation" of August 6, 1833 (Sec. 98), he thus defined 
the treatment that the Saints might bestow upon their enemies : — 

" I have delivered thine enemy into thine hands, and then if thou wilt spare 
him, thou shalt be rewarded for thy righteousness ; . . . nevertheless thine enemy 
is in thine hands, and if thou reward him according to his works thou art justi- 
fied, if he has sought thy life, and thy life is endangered by him, thine enemy 
is in thine hands and thou art justified." 

What such a license would mean to a following like Smith's 
can easily be understood. 

The next step in the same direction was taken during the exer- 
cises which accompanied the opening of the Kirtland Temple. 
Three days after the dedicatory services, all the high officers of 
the church, and the official members of the stake, to the number 
of about three hundred, met in the Temple by appointment to per- 
form the washing of feet. While this was going on (following 
Smith's own account), 1 " the brethren began to prophesy blessings 
upon each other's heads, and cursings upon the enemies of Christ 
who inhabit Jackson County, Missouri, and continued prophesy- 
ing and blessing and sealing them, with hosannah and amen, until 
nearly seven o'clock p.m. The bread and wine were then brought 
in. While waiting, I made the following remarks, ' I want to 
enter into the following covenant, that if any more of our breth- 
ren are slain or driven from their lands in Missouri by the mob, 
we will give ourselves no rest until we are avenged of our enemies 



1 Millennial Star, Vol. XV, pp. 727-728. 



RADICAL DISSENSIONS IN THE CHURCH 



to the uttermost.' This covenant was sealed unanimously, with a 
hosannah and an amen." 1 

The original name chosen for the Danites was " Daughters of 
Zion," suggested by the text Micah iv. 13 : " Arise and thresh, O 
daughter of Zion ; for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make 
thine hoofs brass ; and thou shalt beat in pieces many people ; and 
I will consecrate thy gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto 
the Lord of the whole earth." " Daughters " of anybody was soon 
decided to be an inappropriate designation for such a band, and 
they were next called " Destroying (or Flying) Angels," a title still 
in use in Utah days; then the "Big Fan," suggested by Jeremiah 
xv. 7, or Luke hi. 17; then "Brothers of Gideon," and finally 
" Sons of Dan " (whence the name Danites,) from Genesis xlix. 
17: " Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, 
that biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall back- 
ward. " 2 

Avard presented the text of the constitution to the court at 
Richmond, Missouri, during the inquiry before Judge King in 
November, 1838. 3 It begins with a preamble setting forth the 
agreement of the members " to regulate ourselves under such laws 
as in righteousness shall be deemed necessary for the preservation 
of our holy religion, and of our most sacred rights, and the rights 
of our wives and children," and declaring that, "not having the 
privileges of others allowed to us, we have determined, like unto 
our fathers, to resist tyranny, whether it be in kings or in the 
people. It is all alike to us. Our rights we must have, and our 
rights we shall have, in the name of Israel's God." The President 
of the church and his counsellors were to hold the "executive 
power," and also, along with the generals and colonels of the so- 
ciety, to hold the " legislative powers " ; this legislature to " have 
power to make all laws regulating the society, and regulating pun- 
ishments to be administered to the guilty in accordance with the 
offence." Thus was furnished machinery for carrying out any 
decree of the officers of the church against either life or property. 

The Danite oath as it was administered in Nauvoo was as 
follows : — 

1 " The spirit of that covenant evidently bore fruit in the Fourth of July oration of 
1838 and the Mountain Meadow Massacre." — The Return, Vol. II, p. 271. 

2 Hyde's " Mormonism Exposed," pp. 104-105. 

3 Missouri " Correspondence, Orders, etc.," pp. 101-102. 



192 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



"In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I do solemnly obligate myself 
ever to regard the Prophet and the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ 
of Latter-Day Saints as the supreme head of the church on earth, and to obey 
them in all things, the same as the supreme God ; that I will stand by my breth- 
ren in danger or difficulty, and will uphold the Presidency, right or wrong ; and 
that I will ever conceal, and never reveal, the secret purposes of this society, 
called Daughters of Zion. Should I ever do the same, I hold my life as the for- 
feiture, in a caldron of boiling oil." 1 

John D. Lee, who was a member of the organization, explaining 
their secret signs, says, 2 "The sign or token of distress is made 
by placing the right hand on the right side of the face, with the 
points of the fingers upward, shoving the hand upward until the 
ear is snug up between the thumb and forefinger." 

It has always been the policy of the Mormon church to deny 
to the outside world that any such organization as the Danites 
existed, or at least that it received the countenance of the authori- 
ties. Smith's City Council in Nauvoo made an affidavit that there 
was no such society there, and Utah Mormons have professed 
similar ignorance. Brigham Young, himself, however, gave tes- 
timony to the contrary in the days when he was supreme in Salt 
Lake City. In one of his discourses which will be found reported 
in the Deseret News (Vol. VII, p. 143) he said : " If men come here 
and do not behave themselves, they will not only find the Danites, 
whom they talk so much about, biting the horses' heels, but the 
scoundrels will find something biting their heels. In my plain 
remarks I merely call things by their own names." It need only 
be added that the church authority has been powerful enough at 
any time in the history of the church to crush out such an organi- 
zation if it so desired. 

A second organization formed about the same time, at a fully 
attended meeting of the Mormons of Daviess County, was called 
"The Host of Israel." It was presided over by captains of tens, 
of fifties, and of hundreds, and, according to Lee, " God com- 
manded Joseph Smith to place the Host of Israel in a situation 
for defence against the enemies of God and the Church of Jesus 
Christ of Latter-Day Saints." 

Another important feature of the church rule that was estab- 

1 Bennett's " History of the Saints," p. 267. 

2 Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 57. 



RADICAL DISSENSIONS IN THE CHURCH 193 



lished at this time was the tithing system, announced in a " reve- 
lation " (Sec. 119), which is dated July 8, 1838. This required 
the flock to put all their " surplus property " into the hands of the 
Bishop for the building of the Temple and the payment of the 
debts of the Presidency, and that, after that, " those who have thus 
been tithed, shall pay one-tenth of all their interest annually ; and 
this shall be a standing law unto them forever." 

Ebenezer Robinson gives an interesting explanation of the 
origin of tithing. 1 In May, 1838, the High Council at Far West, 
after hearing a statement by Rigdon that it was absolutely neces- 
sary for the church to make some provision for the support of the 
families of all those who gave their entire time to church affairs, 
instructed the Bishop to deed to Smith and Rigdon an eighty-acre 
lot belonging to the church, and appointed a committee of three to 
confer with the Presidency concerning their salary for that year. 
Smith and Rigdon thought that $1100 would be a proper sum, 
and the committee reported in favor of a salary, but left the amount 
blank. The council voted the salaries, but this action caused such 
a protest from the church members that at the next meeting the 
resolution was rescinded. Only a few days later came this " reve- 
lation " requiring the payment of tithes, in which there was no 
mention of using any of the money for the poor, as was directed 
in the Ohio " revelation " about the consecration of property to 
the Bishop. 

This tithing system has provided ever since the principal 
revenue of the church. By means of it the Temple was built at 
Nauvoo, and under it vast sums have been contributed in Utah. 
By 1878 the income of the church by this source was placed at 
$1,000,000 a year, 2 and during Brigham Young's administration 
the total receipts were estimated at $13,000,000. We shall see 
that Young made practically no report of the expenditure of this 
vast sum that passed into his control. To Horace Greeley's ques- 
tion, "What is done with the proceeds of this tithing ? " Young 
replied, " Part of it is devoted to building temples and other places 
of worship, part to helping the poor and needy converts on their 
way to this country, and the largest portion to the support of the 
poor among the Saints." 

1 The Return, Vol. I, p. 136. 

2 Salt Lake Tribune, June 25, 1879. 



194 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



As the authority of the church over its members increased, the 
regulation about the payment of tithes was made plainer and more 
severe. Parley P. Pratt, in addressing the General Conference in 
Salt Lake City in October, 1849, sa id, " To fulfil the law of tithing, 
a man should make out and lay before the Bishop a schedule of 
all his property, and pay him one-tenth of it. When he hath 
tithed his principal once, he has no occasion to tithe again ; but 
the next year he must pay one-tenth of his increase, and one-tenth 
of his time, of his cattle, money, goods, and trade ; and, what- 
ever use we put it to, it is still our own, for the Lord does not 
carry it away with him to heaven." 1 

The Seventh General Epistle to the church (September, 185 1) 
made this statement, " It is time that the Saints understood that the 
paying of their tithing is a prominent portion of the labor which 
is allotted to them, by which they are to secure a future residence 
in the heaven they are seeking after." 2 This view was constantly 
presented to the converts abroad. 

At the General Conference in Salt Lake City on September 8, 
1850, Brigham Young made clear his radical view of tithing — a 
duty, he declared, that few had lived up to. Taking the case of a 
supposed Mr. A, engaged in various pursuits (to represent the 
community), starting with a capital of $100,000, he must surrender 
$10,000 of this as tithing. With his remaining $90,000 he gains 
$410,000; $41,000 of this gain must be given into the storehouse 
of the Lord. Next he works nine days with his team ; the tenth 
day's work is for the church, as is one-tenth of the wheat he 
raises, one-tenth of his sheep, and one-tenth of his eggs. 3 

Under date of July 18, came another "revelation" (Sec. 120), 
declaring that the tithings " shall be disposed of by a Council, 
composed of the First Presidency of my church, and of the Bishop 
and his council, and by my High Council." The first meeting of 
this body decided "that the First Presidency should keep all their 
property that they could dispose of to advantage for their sup- 
port, and the remainder be put into the hands of the Bishop, 
according to the commandments." 4 The coolness of this proceed- 
ing in excepting Smith and Rigdon from the obligation to pay a 
tithe is worthy of admiration. 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 134. 8 Ibid., Vol. XIII, p. 21. 

2 Ibid., Vol. XIV, p. 18. * Ibid., Vol. XVI, p. 204. 



CHAPTER VII 



BEGINNING OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES 

Smith had shown his dominating spirit as soon as he arrived 
at Far West. In April, 1838, he announced a "revelation" (Sec. 
115), commanding the building of a house of worship there, the 
work to begin on July 4, the speedy building up of that city, and 
the establishment of Stakes in the regions round about. This last 
requirement showed once more Smith's lack of judgment, and it 
became a source of irritation to the non-Mormons, as it was thought 
to foreshadow a design to control the neighboring counties. Hyde 
says that Smith and Rigdon deliberately planned the scattering 
of the Saints beyond the borders of Clay County with a view to 
political power. 1 

In accordance with this scheme, a "revelation" of May 19 
(Sec. 116), directed the founding of a town on Grand River in 
Daviess County, twenty-five miles northwest of Far West. This 
settlement was to be called " Adam-ondi-Ahman," " because it is the 
place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of 
Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet." The " revela- 
tion " further explains that, three years before his death, Adam 
called a number of high priests and all of his posterity who were 
righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and there blessed 
them. Lee (who, following the common pronunciation, writes the 
name " Adam-on-Diamond ") expresses the belief, which Smith in- 
stilled into his followers, that it "was at the point where Adam came 
and settled and blessed his posterity, after being driven from the 
Garden of Eden. There Adam and Eve tarried for several years, 
and engaged in tilling the soil." 2 By order of the Presidency, 
another town was started in Carroll County, where the Saints had 
been living in peace. Immediately the new settlement was looked 

1 Hyde's " Mormonism," p. 203. 2 " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 91. 

195 



196 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



upon as a possible rival of Gallatin, the county seat, and the non- 
Mormons made known their objections. 

With Smith and Rigdon on the ground, if these men had had 
any tact, or any purpose except to enforce Mormon supremacy in 
whatever part of Missouri they chose to call Zion, the troubles now 
foreshadowed might easily have been prevented. Every step they 
took, however, was in the nature of a defiance. The sermons 
preached to the Mormons that summer taught them that they 
would be able to withstand, not only the opposition of the Mis- 
sourians, but of the United States, if this should be put to the 
test. 1 

The flock in and around Far West were under the influence 
of such advice when they met on July 4 to lay the corner-stone 
of the third Temple, whose building Smith had revealed, and to 
celebrate the day. There was a procession, with a flagpole 
raising, and Smith embraced the occasion to make public 
announcement of the tithing " revelation " (although it bears a 
later date). 

The chief feature of the day, and the one that had most 
influence on the fortunes of the church, was a sermon by Sidney 
Rigdon, known ever since as the " salt sermon," from the text 
Matt. v. 13: "If the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall 
it be salted ? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast 
out, and to be trodden under foot of men." He first applied 
these words to the men who had made trouble in the church, 
declaring that they ought to be trodden under foot until their 
bowels gushed out, citing as a precedent that " the apostles threw 
Judas Iscariot down and trampled out his bowels, and that Peter 
stabbed Ananias and Sapphira." It was what followed, however, 
which made the serious trouble, a defiance to their Missouri oppo- 
nents in these words : — 

" It is not because we cannot, if we were so disposed, enjoy both the honors 
and flatteries of the world, but we have voluntarily offered them in sacrifice, and 
the riches of the world also, for a more durable substance. Our God has prom- 
ised a reward of eternal inheritance, and we have believed his promise, and, 
though we wade through great tribulations, we are in nothing discouraged, for 
we know he that has promised is faithful. The promise is sure, and the reward 
is certain. It is because of this that we have taken the spoiling of our goods. 

1 Coma's " Brief History of the Church," p. 29. 



BEGINNING OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES 



197 



Our cheeks have been given to the smiters, and our heads to those who have 
plucked off the hair. We have not only, when smitten on one cheek, turned the 
other, but we have done it again and again, until we are weary of being smitten, 
and tired of being trampled upon. We have proved the world with kindness ; 
we have suffered their abuse, without cause, with patience, and have endured 
without resentment, until this day, and still their persecution and violence does 
not cease. But from this day and this hour, we will suffer it no more. 

" We take God and all the holy angels to witness this day, that we warn all 
men, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come on us no more for ever, for, from this 
hour, we will bear it no more. Our rights shall no more be trampled on with 
impunity. The man, or set of men, who attempt it, does it at the expense of 
their lives. And that mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between 
us and them a war of extermi?iatio?i, for we will follow them till the last drop 
of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exter?ninate us ; for we will carry 
the seat of war to their own houses, and their own families, and one party or the 
other shall be titterly destroyed. Remember it then, all men. 

" We will never be aggressors ; we will infringe on rights of no people ; but 
shall stand for our own until death. We claim our own rights, and are willing 
that all shall enjoy theirs. 

" No man shall be at liberty to come in our streets, to threaten us with mobs, 
for if he does, he shall atone for it before he leaves the place ; neither shall he be 
at liberty to vilify or slander any of us, for suffer it we will not in this place. 

" We therefore take all men to record this day, as did our fathers. And we 
pledge this day to one another, our fortunes, our lives, and our sacred honors, 
to be delivered from the persecutions which we have had to endure for the last 
nine years, or nearly that. Neither will we indulge any man, or set of men, in 
instituting vexatious lawsuits against us to cheat us out of our just rights. If 
they attempt it we say, woe be unto them. We this day then proclaim ourselves 
free, with a purpose and a determination that never can be broken, no never, 
no never, no never." 

Ebenezer Robinson in The Return (Vol I, p. 170) says : — 

" Let it be distinctly understood that President Rigdon was not alone respon- 
sible for the sentiment expressed in his oration, as that was a carefully prepared 
document previously written, and well understood by the First Presidency ; but 
Elder Rigdon was the mouthpiece to deliver it, as he was a natural orator, and 
his delivery was powerful and effective. 

" Several Missouri gentlemen of note, from other counties, were present on 
the speaker's stand at its delivery, with Joseph Smith, Jr., President, and Hyrum 
Smith, Vice President of the day ; and at the conclusion of the oration, when the 
president of the day led off with a shout of ' Hosannah, Hosannah, Hosannah, 1 
and joined in the shout by the vast multitude, these Missouri gentlemen began 
to shout ' hurrah,' but they soon saw that did not time with the other, and they 
ceased shouting. A copy of the oration was furnished the editor, and printed 
in the Far West, a. weekly newspaper printed in Liberty, the county seat of Clay 
county. It was also printed in pamphlet form, by the writer of this, in the 



198 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



printing office of the Elders' Journal, in the city of Far West, a copy of which 
we have preserved. 

" This oration, and the stand taken by the church in endorsing it, and its 
publication, undoubtedly exerted a powerful influence in arousing the people of 
the whole upper Missouri country." 

At the trial of Rigdon, when he was cast out at Nauvoo, 
Young and others held him alone responsible for this sermon, 
and declared that it was principally instrumental in stirring up 
the hostilities that ensued. 

A state election was to be held in Missouri early in August, 
and there was a good deal of political feeling. Daviess County 
was pretty equally divided between Whigs and Democrats, and 
the vote of the Mormons was sought by the leaders of both parties. 
In Caldwell County the Saints were classed as almost solidly 
Democratic. When election day came, the Danites in the latter 
county distributed tickets on which the Presidency had agreed, 
but this resulted in nothing more serious than some criticism of 
this interference of the church in politics. But in Daviess County 
trouble occurred. 

The Mormons there were warned by the Democrats that the 
Whigs would attempt to prevent their voting at Gallatin. Of 
the ten houses in that town at the time, three were saloons, and 
the material for an election-day row was at hand. It began with 
an attack on a Mormon preacher, and ended in a general fight, 
in which there were many broken heads, but no loss of life ; after 
which, says Lee, who took part in it, " the Mormons all voted." 1 

Exaggerated reports of this melee reached Far West, and 
Dr. Avard, collecting a force of 150 volunteers, and accompanied 
by Smith and Rigdon, started for Daviess County for the support 
of their brethren. They came across no mob, but they made a 
tactical mistake. Instead of disbanding and returning to their 
homes, they, the next morning (following Smith's own account) 2 
" rode out to view the situation." Their ride took them to the 
house of a justice of the peace, named Adam Black, who had 
joined a band whose object was the expulsion of the Mormons. 
Smith could not neglect the opportunity to remind the justice of 
his violation of his oath, and to require of him some satisfaction, 

1 Smith's autobiography says, " Very few of the brethren voted." 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 229. 



BEGINNING OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES 



199 



" so that we might know whether he was our friend or enemy." 
With this view they compelled him to sign what they called " an 
agreement of peace," which the justice drew up in this shape : — 

" I, Adam Black, A Justice of the Peace of Davies County, do hereby Sertify 
to the people called Mormin that he is bound to suport the constitution of this 
state and of the United States, and he is not attached to any mob, nor will not 
attach himself to any such people, and so long as they will not molest me I will 
not molest them. This the 8th day of August, 1838. 

"Adam Black, J. P." 

When the Mormon force returned to Far West, the Daviess 
people secured warrants for the arrest of Smith, L. Wight, and 
others, charging them with violating the law by entering another 
county armed, and compelling a justice of the peace to obey their 
mandate, Black having made an affidavit that he was compelled to 
sign the paper in order to save his life. Wight threatened to resist 
arrest, and this caused such a gathering of Missourians that Smith 
became alarmed and sent for two lawyers, General D. R. Atchison 
and General Doniphan, to come to Far West as his legal advisers. 1 
Acting on their advice, the accused surrendered themselves, and 
were bound over to court in $500 bail for a hearing on Sep- 
tember 7. 

1 General Atchison was the major general in command of that division of the state 
militia. His early reports to the governor must be read in the light of his association 
with Smith as counsel. General Doniphan afterward won fame at Chihuahua in the 
Mexican War. 



V 



CHAPTER VIII 



A STATE OF CIVIL WAR 

All peaceable occupations were now at an end in Daviess 
County. General Atchison reported to the governor that, on arriv- 
ing there on September 17, he found the county practically deserted, 
the Gentiles being gathered in one camp and the Mormons in an- 
other. A justice of the peace, in a statement to the governor, 
declared, " The Mormons are so numerous and so well armed [in 
Daviess and Caldwell counties] that the judicial power of the 
counties is wholly unable to execute any civil or criminal process 
within the limits of either of the said counties against a Mormon or 
Mormons, as they each and every one of them act in concert and 
outnumber the other citizens." Lee says that an order had been 
issued by the church authorities, commanding all the Mormons to 
gather in two fortified camps, at Far West and Adam-ondi-Ahman. 
The men were poorly armed, but demanded to be led against their 
foes, being " confident that God was going to deliver the enemy 
into our hands." 1 

Both parties now stood on the defensive, posting sentinels, and 
making other preparations for a fight. Actual hostilities soon en- 
sued. The Mormons captured some arms which their opponents 
had obtained, and took them, with three prisoners, to Far West. 
"This was a glorious day, indeed," says Smith. 2 Citizens of Da- 
viess and Livingston counties sent a petition to Governor Boggs 
(who had succeeded Dunklin), dated September 12, declaring 
that they believed their lives, liberty, and property to be " in the 
most imminent danger of being sacrificed by the hands of those 
impostorous rebels," and asking for protection. The governor 
had already directed General Atchison to raise immediately four 

1 " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 78. 

2 Smith's autobiography, at this point, says : " President Rigdon and I commenced 
this day the study of law under the instruction of Generals Atchison and Doniphan. 
They think by diligent application we can be admitted to the bar in twelve months." 
— Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 246. 

200 



A STATE OF CIVIL WAR 



201 



hundred mounted men in view of " indications of Indian disturb- 
ances on our immediate frontier, and the recent civil disturbances 
in the counties of Caldwell, Daviess, and Carroll.'' The calling 
out of the militia followed, and General Doniphan found himself in 
command of about one thousand militiamen. He seems to have 
used tact, and to have employed his force only as peace preservers. 
On September 20 he reported to Governor Boggs that he had dis- 
charged all his troops but two companies, and that he did not think 
the sendees of these would be required more than twenty days. 
He estimated the Mormon forces in the disturbed counties at from 
thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred men, most of them carrying a 
rifle, a brace of pistols, and a broadsword; "so that," he added, 
"from their position, and their fanaticism, and their unalterable 
determination not to be driven, much blood will be spilt and much 
suffering endured if a blow is at once struck, without the interposi- 
tion of your excellency." 

The people of Carroll County began now to hold meetings 
whose object was the expulsion of the Mormons from their bounda- 
ries, and some hundreds of them assembled in hostile attitude 
around the little settlement of Dewitt. The Mormons there pre- 
pared for defence, and sent an appeal to Far West for aid. Ac- 
cordingly, one hundred Mormons, including Smith and Rigdon, 
started to assist them, and two companies of militia, under General 
Parks, were hurried to the spot. General Parks reported to Gen- 
eral Atchison on October 7 that, on arriving there the day before, 
he found the place besieged by two hundred or three hundred Mis- 
sourians, under a Dr. Austin, with a field-piece, and defended by 
two hundred or three hundred Mormons under G. M. Hinckle, 
"who says he will die before he is driven from thence." Austin 
expected speedy reinforcements that would enable him to take the 
place by assault. A petition addressed by the Mormons of Dewitt 
to the governor, as early as September 22, having been ignored, 
and finding themselves outnumbered, they agreed to abandon their 
settlement on receiving pay for their improvements, and some fifty 
wagons conveyed them and their effects to Far West. 

A period of absolute lawlessness in all that section of the state 
followed. Smith declared that civil war existed, and that, as the 
state would not protect them, they must look out for themselves. 
He and his associates made no concealment of their purpose to 



202 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



"make clean work of it" in driving the non-Mormons from both 
Daviess and Caldwell counties. When warned that this course 
would array the whole state against them, Smith replied that the 
" mob " (as the opponents of the Mormons were always styled) 
were a small minority of the state, and would yield to armed oppo- 
sition ; the Mormons would defeat one band after another, and so 
proceed across the state, until they reached St. Louis, where the 
Mormon army would spend the winter. This calculation is a fair 
illustration of Smith's judgment. 

Armed bands of both parties now rode over the country, pay- 
ing absolutely no respect to property rights, and ready for a 
"brush" with any opponents. At Smith's suggestion, a band of 
men, under the name of the " Fur Company," was formed to 
"commandeer" food, teams, and men for the Mormon campaign. 
This practical license to steal let loose the worst element in the 
church organization, glad of any method of revenge on those whom 
they considered their persecutors. " Men of former quiet," says 
Lee, who was among the active raiders, " became perfect demons 
in their efforts to spoil and waste away the enemies of the church." 1 
Cattle and hogs that could not be driven off were killed. 2 Houses 
were burned, not only in the outlying country, but in the towns. 
A night attack by a band of eighty men was made on Gallatin, 
where some of the houses were set on fire, and two stores as well 
as private houses were robbed. The house of one McBride, who, 
Lee says, had been a good friend to him and to other Mormons, 
did not escape : " Every article of moveable property was taken by 
the troops ; he was utterly ruined." " It appeared to me," says 
Corrill, "that the love of pillage grew upon them very fast, for they 
plundered every kind of property they could get hold of, and burnt 
many cabins in Daviess, some say 80, and some say 150." 3 

The Missourians retaliated in kind. Mormons were seized and 
whipped, and their houses were burned. A lawless company 
(Pratt calls them banditti), led by one Gilliam, embraced the oppor- 
tunity to make raids in the Mormon territory. It was soon found 
necessary to collect the outlying Mormons at Far West and Adam- 

1 Lee naively remarks, " In justice to Joseph Smith I cannot say that I ever heard 
him teach, or even encourage, men to pilfer or steal little things." — " Mormonism 
Unveiled," p. 90. 

2 W. Harris's " Mormonism Portrayed," p. 30. 

3 " Brief History of the Church," p. 38. 



A STATE OF CIVIL WAR 



203 



ondi-Ahman, where they were used for purposes both of offence 
and defence. The movements of the Missourians were closely 
watched, and preparations were made to burn any place from 
which a force set out to attack the Saints. 

One of the Missouri officers, Captain Bogart, on October 23, 
warned some Mormons to leave the county, and, with his com- 
pany of thirty or forty men, announced his intention to " give 
Far West thunder and lightning." When this news reached Far 
West, Judge Higbee, of the county court, ordered Lieutenant Colo- 
nel Hinckle to go out with a company, disperse the " mob," and 
retake some prisoners. The Mormons assembled at midnight, 
and about seventy-five volunteers started at once, under command 
of Captain Patton, the Danite leader, whose nickname was "Fear 
Not," all on horseback. When they approached Crooked River, 
on which Bogart's force was encamped, fifteen men were sent in 
advance on foot to locate the enemy. Just at dawn a rifle shot 
sounded, and a young Mormon, named O'Barrion, fell mortally 
wounded. Captain Patton ordered a charge, and led his men at a 
gallop down a hill to the river, under the bank of which the Mis- 
sourians were drawn up. The latter had an advantage, as they 
were in the shade, and the Mormons were between them and the 
east, which the dawn was just lighting. Exchanges of volleys 
occurred, and then Captain Patton ordered his men to rush on 
with drawn swords — they had no bayonets. This put the Mis- 
sourians to flight, but just as they fled Captain Patton received a 
mortal wound. Three Mormons in all were killed as a result of 
this battle, and seven wounded, while Captain Bogart reported the 
death of one man. 1 

The death of " Fear Not " was considered by the Mormons a 
great loss. He was buried with the honors of war, says Robinson, 
" and at his grave a solemn convention was made to avenge his 
death." Smith, in the funeral sermon, reverted to his old tactics, 
attributing the Mormon losses to the Lord's anger against his peo- 
ple, because of their unbelief and their unwillingness to devote 
their worldly treasures to the church. 

The rout of Captain Bogart's force, which was a part of the 
state militia, increased the animosity against the Mormons, and 
the wiser of the latter believed that they would suffer a dire ven- 

1 Ebenezer Robinson's account in The Return, p. 191. 



204 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



geance. 1 This vengeance first made itself felt at a settlement called 
Hawn's Mill (of which there are various spellings), some miles 
from Far West, where there were a flour mill, blacksmith shop, and 
other buildings. The Mormons there were advised, the day after the 
fight on Crooked River, to move into Far West for protection, but 
the owners of the buildings, knowing that these would be burned 
as soon as deserted, decided to remain and defend their property. 

On October 30 a mounted force of Missourians appeared 
before the place. The Mormons ran into the log blacksmith shop, 
which they thought would serve them as a blockhouse, but it 
proved to be a slaughter-pen. The Missourians surrounded it, and, 
sticking their rifles into every hole and crack, poured in a deadly 
fire, killing, some reports say eighteen, and some thirty-one, of the 
Mormons. The only persons in the town who escaped found 
shelter in the woods. The Missourians did not lose a man. When 
the firing ceased, they still showed no mercy, shooting a small boy 
in the leg after dragging him out from under the bellows, and 
hacking to death with a corn cutter an old man while he begged 
for his life. Dead and wounded were thrown into a well, and 
some of the wounded, taken out by rescuers from Far West, re- 
covered. " I heard one of the militia tell General Clark," says 
Corrill, " that a well twenty or thirty feet deep was filled with their 
dead bodies to within three feet of the top." 2 

The Mormons have always considered this " massacre," as they 
called it, the crowning outrage of their treatment in Missouri, and 
for many years were especially bitter toward all participants in it. 
A letter from two Mormons in the Frontier Guardian, dated Octo- 
ber, 1849, describing the disinterred human bones seen on their 
journey across the plains, said that they recognized on the rude 
tombstone the names of some of their Missouri persecutors : 
" Among others, we noted at the South Pass of the Rocky Moun- 
tains the grave of one E. Dodd of Gallatin, Missouri. The wolves 
had completely disinterred him. It is believed that he was the 
same Dodd that took an active part as a prominent mobocrat in 
the murder of the Saints at Hawn's Mill, Missouri ; if so, it is a 

1 Corrill's " Brief History of the Church," p. 38. 

2 Details of this massacre will be found in Lee's " Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 78-80; 
in the Missouri "Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 82; the Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, 
p. 507, and in Greene's " Facts Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons from Mis- 
souri," pp. 21-24. 



A STATE OF CIVIL WAR 



205 



righteous retribution." Two Mormon elders, describing a visit in 
1889 to the scenes of the Mormon troubles in Missouri, said, "The 
notorious Colonel W. O. Jennings, who commanded the mob at 
the [Hawn's Mill] massacre, was assaulted in Chillicothe, Missouri, 
on the evening of January 20, 1862, by an unknown person, who 
shot him on the street with a revolver or musket, as the Colonel 
was going home after dark." 1 They are silent as to the avenger. 

Governor Boggs now began to realize the seriousness of the 
situation that he was called to meet, and on October 26 he directed 
General John B. Clark (who was not the ranking general) to raise, 
for the protection of the citizens of Daviess County, four hundred 
mounted men. This order he followed the next day with the 
following, which has become the most famous of the orders 
issued during this campaign, under the designation " the order of 
extermination " : — 

"Headquarters of the Militia, 
"City of Jefferson, Oct. 27, 1838. 

" Gen. John B. Clark, 

" Sir : — Since the order of this morning to you, directing you to cause four 
hundred mounted men to be raised within your Division, I have received by Amos 
Rees, Esq., of Ray County and Wiley C. Williams, Es^., one of my aids, infor- 
mation of the most appalling character, which entirely changes the face of things, 
and places the Mormons in the attitude of an open and avowed defiance of the 
laws, and of having made war upon the people of this state. Your orders are, 
therefore, to hasten your operations with all possible speed. 

" The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or 
driven from the State if necessary for the public peace — their outrages are be- 
yond all description. If you can increase your force, you are authorized to do 
so to any extent you may consider necessary. I have just issued orders to Maj. 
Gen. Willock, of Marion County, to raise five hundred men, and to march them 
to the northern part of Daviess, and there unite with Gen. Doniphan, of Clay, 
who has been ordered with five hundred men to proceed to the same point for 
the purpose of intercepting the retreat of the Mormons to the north. They have 
been directed to communicate with you by express ; you can also communicate 
with them if you find it necessary. 

" Instead therefore of proceeding, as at first directed, to reinstate the citi- 
zens of Daviess in their homes, you will proceed immediately to Richmond and 
then operate against the Mormons. Brig. Gen. Parks, of Ray, has been ordered 
to have four hundred of his brigade in readiness to join you at Richmond. The 
whole force will be placed under your command. 

" I am very respectfully, 
" Your ob't serv't, 

"L. W. Boggs, Commander-in-chief.' 1 ' 1 

1 " Infancy of the Church " (pamphlet) . 



206 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The "appalling information" received by the governor from 
his aids was contained in a letter dated October 25, which stated 
that the Mormons were " destroying all before them " ; that they 
had burned Gallatin and Mill Pond, and almost every house be- 
tween these places, plundered the whole country, and defeated 
Captain Bogart's company, and had determined to burn Richmond 
that night. "These creatures," said the letter, "will never stop 
until they are stopped by the strong hand of force, and something 
must be done, and that speedily." 1 

The language of Governor Boggs's letter to General Clark can- 
not be defended. The Mormons have always made great capital 
of his declaration that the Mormons " must be exterminated," and 
a man of judicial temperament would have selected other words, 
no matter how necessary he deemed it, for political reasons, to 
show his sympathy with the popular cause. But, on the other 
hand, the governor was only accepting the challenge given by 
Rigdon in his recent Fourth of July address, when the latter de- 
clared that if a mob disturbed the Mormons, "it shall be between 
us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them till 
the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to ex- 
terminate us." What compromise there could have been between 
a band of fanatics obeying men like Smith and Rigdon, and the 
class of settlers who made up the early Missouri population, it is 
impossible to conceive. The Mormons were simply impossible as 
neighbors, and it had become evident that they could no more re- 
main peaceably in the state than they could a few years previously 
in Jackson County. 

General Atchison, of Smith's counsel, was not called on by the 
governor in these latest movements, because, as the governor ex- 
plained in a letter to General Clark, " there was much dissatisfaction 
manifested toward him by the people opposed to the Mormons." 
But he had seen his mistake, and he united with General Lucas in 
a letter to the governor under date of October 28, in which they 
said, " from late outrages committed by the Mormons, civil war is 
inevitable," and urged the governor's presence in the disturbed 
district. Governor Boggs excused himself from complying with 
this request because of the near approach of the meeting of the 
legislature. 

1 For text of letter, see " Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 59. 



A STATE OF CIVIL WAR 



207 



General Lucas, acting under his interpretation of the gov- 
ernor's order, had set out on October 28 for Far West from near 
Richmond, with a force large enough to alarm the Mormon leaders. 
Robinson, speaking of the outlook from their standpoint at this 
time, says, " We looked for warm work, as there were large num- 
bers of armed men gathering in Daviess County, with avowed 
determination of driving the Mormons from the county, and we 
began to feel as determined that the Missourians should be ex- 
pelled from the county." 1 The Mormons did not hear of the ap- 
proach of General Lucas's force until it was near the town. Then 
the southern boundary was hastily protected with a barricade of 
wagons and logs, and the night of October 30-31 was employed 
by all the inhabitants in securing their possessions for flight, in 
anticipation of a battle the next day. 

1 The Return, Vol. I, p. 189. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE 

At eight o'clock the next morning the commander of the 
militia sent a flag of truce to the Mormons which Colonel Hinckle, 
for the Mormons, met. General Lucas submitted the following 
terms, as necessary to carry out the governor's orders : — 

"i. To give up their leaders to be tried and punished. 

" 2. To make an appropriation of their property, all who have taken up arms, 
to the payment of their debts and indemnity for damage done by them. 

"3. That the balance should leave the State, and be protected out by the 
militia, but be permitted to remain under protection until further orders were re- 
ceived by the commander-in-chief. 

" 4. To give up the arms of every description, to be receipted for." 

While these propositions were under consideration, General 
Lucas asked that Smith, Rigdon, Lyman Wight, P. P. Pratt, and 
G. W. Robinson be given up as hostages, and this was done. 
Contemporary Mormon accounts imputed treachery to Colonel 
Hinckle in this matter, and said that Smith and his associates were 
lured into the militia camp by a ruse. General Lucas's report to 
the governor says that the proposition for a conference came from 
Hinckle. Hyrum Smith, in an account of the trial of the prisoners, 
printed some years later in the Times and Seasons, said that all the 
men who surrendered were that night condemned by a court-martial 
to be shot, but were saved by General Doniphan's interference. 
Lee's account agrees with this, but says that Smith surrendered 
voluntarily, to save the lives of his followers. 

General Lucas received the surrender of Far West, on the 
terms named, in advance of the arrival of General Clark, who was 
making forced marches. After the surrender, General Lucas dis- 
banded the main body of his force, and set out with his prisoners 
for Independence, the original site of Zion. General Clark, learn- 

208 



THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE 



ing of this, ordered him to transfer the prisoners to Richmond, 
which was done. 

Hearing that the guard left by General Lucas at Far West 
were committing outrages, General Clark rode to that place 
accompanied by his field officers. He found no disorder, 1 but 
instituted a military court of inquiry, which resulted in the arrest 
of forty-six additional Mormons, who were sent to Richmond for 
trial. The facts on which these arrests were made were obtained 
principally from Dr. Avard, the Danite, who was captured by a 
militia officer. " No one," General Clark says, "disclosed any 
useful matter until he was captured." 

After these arrests had been made, General Clark called the 
other Mormons at Far West together, and addressed them, telling 
them that they could now go to their fields for corn, wood, etc., 
but that the terms of the surrender must be strictly lived up to. 
Their leading men had been given up, their arms surrendered, and 
their property assigned as stipulated, but it now remained for them 
to leave the state forthwith. On that subject the general said : — 

" The character of this state has suffered almost beyond redemption, from 
the character, conduct, and influence that you have exerted ; and we deem it an 
act of justice to restore her character to its former standing among the states by 
every proper means. The orders of the governor to me were that you should be 
exterminated and not allowed to remain in the state. And had not your leaders 
been given up, and the terms of the treaty complied with, before this time you 
and your families would have been destroyed, and your houses in ashes. There 
is a discretionary power vested in my hands, which, considering your circum- 
stances, I shall exercise for a season. You are indebted to me for this clemency. 

" I do not say that you shall go now, but you must not think of staying here 
another season, or of putting in crops, for the moment you do this the citizens 
will be upon you ; and if I am called here again, in a case of a non-compliance 
of a treaty made, do not think that I shall do as I have done now. You need not 
expect any mercy, but extermination, for I am determined the governor's orders 
shall be executed. As for your leaders, do not think, do not imagine for a mo- 
ment, do not let it enter into your mind, that they will be delivered and restored 
to you again, for their fate is fixed, their die is cast, their doom is sealed. 

" I am sorry, gentlemen, to see so many apparently intelligent men'found in 
the situation you are ; and O ! if I could invoke the great spirit, the unknown 
God, to rest upon and deliver you from that awful chain of superstition, and lib- 

1 " Much property was destroyed by the troops in town during their stay there, such 
as burning house logs, rails, corn cribs, boards, etc., the using of corn and hay, the plun- 
dering of houses, the killing of cattle, sheep, and hogs, and also the taking of horses not 
their own." — " Mormon Memorial to Missouri Legislature," December 10, 1838. 
P 



210 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



erate you from those fetters of fanaticism with which you are bound, that you 
no longer do homage to a man. I would advise you to scatter abroad, and 
never organize yourselves with bishops, presidents, etc., lest you excite the 
jealousies of the people, and subject yourselves to the same calamities that have 
now come upon you. You have always been the aggressors : you have brought 
upon yourselves these difficulties by being disaffected, and not being subject to 
rule. And my advice is that you become as other citizens, lest by a recurrence 
of these events you bring upon yourselves irretrievable ruin." 

General Clark then marched with his prisoners to Richmond, 
where the trial of all the accused began on November 12, before 
Judge A. A. King. By November 29 the called-out militia had 
been disbanded, and on that date General Clark made his final 
report to the governor. In this he asserted that the militia under 
him had conducted themselves as honorable citizen soldiers, and 
enclosed a certificate signed by five Mormons, including W. W. 
Phelps, Colonel Hinckle, and John Corrill, confirming this state- 
ment, and saying, "We have no hesitation in saying that the 
course taken by General Clark with the Mormons was necessary 
for the public peace, and that the Mormons are generally satisfied 
with his course." 

In his summing up of the results of the campaign, General 
Clark said : — 

"It [the Mormon insurrection] had for its object Dominion, the ultimate 
subjugation of this State and the Union to the laws of a few men called the 
Presidency. Their church was to be built up at any rate, peaceably if they could, 
forcibly if necessary. These people had banded themselves together in societies, 
the object of which was to first drive from their society such as refused to join 
them in their unholy purposes, and then to plunder the surrounding country, and 
ultimately to subject the state to their rule." 

" The whole number of the Mormons killed through the whole difficulty, so 
far as I can ascertain, are about forty, and several wounded. There has been one 
citizen killed, and about fifteen badly wounded." 1 

Brigadier General R. Wilson was sent with his command to 
settle the Mormon question in Daviess County. Finding the town 
of Adam-ondi-Ahman unguarded, he placed guards around it, and 
gathered in the Mormons of the neighborhood, to the number of 
about two hundred. Most of these, he explained in his report, were 
late comers from Canada and the northern border of the United 
States, and were living mostly in tents, without any adequate pro- 
vision for the winter. Those against whom criminal charges had 

1 " Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 92. 



THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE 211 



been made were placed under arrest, and the others were informed 
that General Wilson would protect them for ten days, and would 
guarantee their safety to Caldwell County or out of the state. 
" This appeared to me," said General Wilson, in his report to Gen- 
eral Clark. " to be the only course to prevent a general massacre." 
In this report General Wilson presented the following picture of 
the situation there as he found it : — 

" It is perfectly impossible for me to convey to you anything like the awful 
state of things which exists here — language is inadequate to the task. The citi- 
zens of a whole county first plundered, and then their houses and other buildings 
burnt to ashes ; without houses, beds, furniture, or even clothing in many in- 
stances, to meet the inclemency of the weather. I confess that my feelings have 
been shocked with the gross brutality of these Mormons, who have acted more 
like demons from the infernal regions than human beings. Under these circum- 
stances, you will readily perceive that it would be perfectly impossible for me to 
protect the Mormons against the just indignation of the citizens. . . . The 
Mormons themselves appeared pleased with the idea of getting away from their 
enemies and a justly insulted people, and I believe all have applied and received 
permits to leave the county ; and I suppose about fifty families have left, and 
others are hourly leaving, and at the end of ten days Mormonism will not be 
known in Daviess county. This_ appeared to me to be the only course left to 
prevent a general massacre." 1 

The Mormons began to depart at once, and in ten days nearly 
all had left. Lee, who acted as guide to General Wilson, and 
whose wife and babe were at Adam-ondi-Ahman, says : — 

"Every house in Adam-on-Diamond was searched by the troops for stolen 
property. They succeeded in finding very much of the Gentile property that had 
been captured by the Saints in the various raids they made through- the country. 
Bedding of every kind and in large quantities was found and reclaimed by the 
owners. Even spinning wheels, soap barrels, and other articles were recovered. 
Each house wmere stolen property was found w T as certain to receive a Missouri 
blessing from the troops. The men who had been most active in gathering 
plunder had fled to Illinois to escape the vengeance of the people, leaving their 
families to suffer for the sins of the believing Saints. 1 ' 2 

We may now follow the fortunes of the Mormon prisoners. 
On arriving at Richmond, they were confined in the unfinished 
brick court-house. The only inside work on this building that 
was completed was a partly laid floor, and to this the prisoners 
were restricted by a railing, with a guard inside and out. " Two 
three-pail iron kettles for boiling our meat, and two or more iron 

1 " Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 78. 2 " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 89. 



212 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



bake kettles, or Dutch ovens, were furnished us," says Robinson, 
" together with sacks of corn meal and meat in bulk. We did our 
own cooking. This arrangement suited us very well, and we en- 
joyed ourselves as well as men could under such circumstances." 1 

Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Caleb Bald- 
win, and A. McRea were soon transferred to the jail at Liberty. 
The others were then put into the debtor's room of Richmond jail, 
a two-story log structure which was not well warmed, but they were 
released on light bail in a few days. 

A report of the testimony given at the hearing of the Mormon 
prisoners before Judge King will be found in the " Correspond- 
ence, Orders, etc.," published by order of the Missouri legislature, 
pp. 97-149. Among the Mormons who gave evidence against the 
prisoners were Avard, the Danite, John Whitmer, W. W. Phelps, 
John Corrill, and Colonel Hinckle. There were thirty-seven wit- 
nesses for the state and seven for the defence. As showing the 
character of the testimony, the following selections will suffice. 

Avard told the story of the origin of the Danites, and said that 
he considered Joseph Smith their organizer ; that the constitution 
was approved by Smith and his counsellors at Rigdon's house, and 
that the members felt themselves as much bound to obey the heads 
of the church as to obey God. Just previous to the arrival of Gen- 
eral Lucas at Far West, Smith had assembled his force, and told 
them that, for every one they lacked in numbers as compared with 
their opponents, the Lord would send angels to fight for them. 
He presented the text of the indictment against Cowdery, Whit- 
mer, and others, drawn up by Rigdon. 

John Corrill testified about the effect of Rigdon's " salt ser- 
mon," and also that he had attended meetings of the Danites, and 
had expressed disapproval of the doctrine that, if one brother got 
into difficulty, it was the duty of the others to help him out, right 
or wrong ; that Smith and Rigdon attended one of these meetings, 
and that he had heard Smith declare at a meeting, " if the people 
would let us alone, we would preach the Gospel to them in peace, 
but if they came on us to molest us, we would establish our religion 
by the sword, and that he would become to this generation a sec- 
ond Mohammed " ; just after the expulsion of the Mormons from 
Dewitt, Smith declared hostilities against their opponents in Cald- 

1 The Return, Vol. I, p. 234. 



THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE 21 3 



well and Daviess counties, and had a resolution passed, looking to 
the confiscation of the property of the brethren who would not 
join him in the march ; and on a Sunday he advised the people 
that they might at times take property which at other times it 
would be wrong to take, citing David's eating of the shew bread, 
and the Saviour's plucking ears of corn. 1 Reed Peck testified to 
the same effect. 

John Clemison testified to the presence of Smith at the early 
meetings of the Danites ; that Rigdon and Smith had advised that 
those who were backward in joining his fighting force should be 
placed in the front ranks at the point of pitchforks ; that a great 
deal of Gentile property was brought into Mormon camps, and that 
" it was frequently observed among the troops that the time had 
come when the riches of the Gentiles should be consecrated to the 
state." 

W. W. Phelps testified that in the previous April he had heard 
Rigdon say, at a meeting in Far West, that they had borne perse- 
cution and lawsuits long enough, and that, if a sheriff came with 
writs against them, they would kill him, and that Smith approved 
his words. Phelps said that the character of Rigdon's " salt ser- 
mon " was known and discussed in advance of its delivery. 

John Whitmer testified that, soon after the preaching of the 
" salt sermon," a leading Mormon told him that they did not intend 
to regard any longer "the niceties of the law of the land," as "the 
kingdom spoken of by the Prophet Daniel had been set up." 

The testimony concerning the Danite organization and Smith's 
threats against the Missourians received confirmation in an affida- 
vit by no less a person than Thomas B. Marsh, the First President 
of the twelve Apostles, before a justice of the peace in Ray County, 
in October, 1838. In this Marsh said : — 

" The plan of said Smith, the Prophet, is to take this state ; and he professes 
to his people to intend taking the United States and ultimately the whole world. 
The Prophet inculcates the notion, and it is believed by every true Mormon, that 
Smith's prophecies are superior to the law of the land. I have heard the Prophet 
say that he would yet tread down his enemies, and walk over their dead bodies ; 
that, if he was not let alone, he would be a second Mohammed to this generation, 
and that he would make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the 
Atlantic Ocean." 

1 Corrill, Avard, Hinckle, Marsh, and others were formally excommunicated at a 
council held at Quincy, Illinois, on March 17, 1839, over which Brigham Young presided. 



214 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



This affidavit was accompanied by an affidavit by Orson Hyde, 
who was afterward so prominent in the councils of the church, 
stating that he knew most of Marsh's statements to be true, and 
believed the others to be true also. 

Of the witnesses for the defence, two women and one man gave 
testimony to establish an alibi for Lyman Wight at the time of the 
last Mormon expedition to Daviess County ; Rigdon's daughter 
Nancy testified that she had heard Avard say that he would swear 
to a lie to accomplish an object ; and J. W. Barlow gave testimony 
to show that Smith and Rigdon were not with the men who took 
part in the battle on Crooked Creek. 

Rigdon, in an " Appeal to the American People," which he 
wrote soon after, declared that this trial was a compound between 
an inquisition and a criminal court, and that the testimony of Avard 
was given to save his own life. " A part of an armed body of 
men," he says, " stood in the presence of the court to see that the 
witnesses swore right, and another part was scouring the country 
to drive out of it every witness they could hear of whose testimony 
would be favorable to the defendants. If a witness did not swear 
to please the court, he or she would be threatened to be cast into 
prison. ... A man by the name of Allen began to tell the story 
of Bogart's burning houses in the south part of Caldwell; he was 
kicked out of the house, and three men put after him with loaded 
guns, and he hardly escaped with his life. [Finally] our lawyers, 
General Doniphan and Amos Rees, told us not to bring our wit- 
nesses there at all, for if we did, there would not be one of them 
left for the final trial. ... As to making any impression on King, 
if a cohort of angels were to come down and declare we were clear, 
Doniphan said it would be all the same, for he had determined from 
the beginning to cast us into prison." Smith alleged that Judge 
King was biassed against them because his brother-in-law had been 
killed during the early conflicts in Jackson County. 

Several of the defendants were discharged during or after the 
close of the hearing. Smith, Rigdon, Lyman Wight, and three 
others were ordered committed to the Clay County jail at Liberty 
on a charge of treason ; Parley P. Pratt and four others to the Ray 
County jail on a charge of murder ; and twenty-three others were 
ordered to give bail on a charge of arson, burglary, robbery, and 
larceny, and all but eight of these were locked up in default of 



THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE 21 5 

bail. The prisoners confined at Liberty secured a writ of habeas 
corpus soon after, but only Rigdon was ordered released, and he 
thought it best for his safety to go back to the jail. He afterward, 
with the connivance of the sheriff and jailer, made his escape at 
night, and reached Quincy, Illinois, in February, 1839. 

P. P. Pratt, in his " Late Persecution," says that the prisoners 
were kept in chains most of the time, and that Rigdon, although 
ill, "was compelled to sleep on the floor, with a chain and padlock 
round his ankle, and fastened to six others." Hyrum Smith, in a 
"Communication to the Saints" printed a year later, says; "We 
suffered much from want of proper food, and from the nauseous 
cell in which I was confined." 

Joseph Smith remained in the Liberty jail until April, 1839. At 
one time all the prisoners nearly made their escape, " but unfortu- 
nately for us, the timber of the wall being very hard, our augur 
handles gave out, which hindered us longer than we expected," 
and the plan was discovered. 

The prophet employed a good deal of his time in jail in 
writing long epistles to the church. He gave out from there also 
three "revelations," the chief direction of which was that the 
brethren should gather up all possible information about their 
persecutions, and make out a careful statement of their property 
losses. His letters reveal the character of the man as it had 
already been exhibited — headlong in his purposes, vindictive 
toward any enemy. He says in his biography that he paid his 
lawyers about $50,000 " in cash, lands, etc." (a pretty good sum 
for the refugee from Ohio to amass so soon), but got little prac- 
tical assistance from them, " for sometimes they were afraid to 
act on account of the mob, and sometimes they were so drunk as 
to incapacitate them for business." In one of his letters to the 
church he thus speaks of some of his recent allies, "This poor 
man [W. W. Phelps] who professes to be much of a prophet, 
has no other dumb ass to ride but David Whitmer, or to forbid 
his madness when he goes up to curse Israel ; but this not being 
of the same kind as Balaam's, therefore, notwithstanding the angel 
appeared unto him, yet he could not sufficiently penetrate his 
understanding but that he brays out cursings instead of blessings." 1 

On April 6, Smith and his fellow-prisoners were taken to 

1 Times and Seasons, Vol. I, p. 82. 



2l6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Daviess County for trial. The judge and jury before whom their 
cases came were, according to his account, all drunk. Smith 
and four others were promptly indicted for " murder, treason, 
burglary, arson, larceny, theft, and stealing." They at once 
secured a change of venue to Boone County, 120 miles east, and 
set out for that place on April 1 5, but they never reached there. 
Smith says they were enabled to escape because their guard got 
drunk. In a newspaper interview printed many years later, 
General Doniphan is quoted as saying that he had it on good 
authority that Smith paid the sheriff and his guards $1100 to allow 
the prisoners to escape. Ebenezer Robinson says that Joseph 
and Hyrum were allowed to ride away on two fine horses, and 
that, a few weeks later, he saw the sheriff at Quincy making 
Joseph a friendly visit, at which time he received pay for the 
animals. 1 The party arrived at Quincy, Illinois, on April 22, and 
were warmly welcomed by the brethren who had preceded them. 
Among these was Brigham Young, who was among those who 
had found it necessary to flee the state before the final surrender 
was arranged. The Missouri authorities, as we shall see, for a 
long time continued their efforts to secure the extradition of Smith, 
but he never returned to Missouri. 

As the Mormons had tried to set aside their original agreement 
with the Jackson County people, so, while their leaders were in 
jail, they endeavored to find means to break their treaty with 
General Lucas. Their counsel, General Atchison, was a member 
of the legislature, and he warmly espoused their cause. They 
sent in a petition, 2 which John Corrill presented, giving a state- 
ment in detail of the opposition they had encountered in the state, 
and asking for the enactment of a law " rescinding the order of 
the governor to drive us from the state, and also giving us the 
sanction of the legislature to inherit our lands in peace " ; as well 
as disapproving of the " deed of trust," as they called the second 
section of the Lucas treaty. The petition was laid on the table. 
An effort for an investigation of the whole trouble by a legislative 
committee was made, and an act to that effect was passed in 1839, 
but nothing practical came of it. When the Mormon memorial 
was called up, its further consideration was postponed until July, 

1 The Return, p. 243. 

2 For full text, see Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, pp. 586-589. 



THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE 217 



and then the Mormons knew that they had no alternative except 
to leave the state. 

While the prisoners were in jail, things had not quieted down 
in the Mormon counties. The decisive action of the state authori- 
ties had given the local Missourians to understand that the law of 
the land was on their side, and when the militia withdrew they 
took advantage of their opportunity. Mormon property was not 
respected, and what was left to those people in the way of horses, 
cattle, hogs, and even household belongings was taken by the 
bands of men who rode at pleasure, 1 and who claimed that they 
were only regaining what the Mormons had stolen from them. 
The legislature appropriated $2000 for the relief of such 
sufferers. 

Facing the necessity of moving entirely out of the state, the 
Mormons, as they had reached the western border line of civiliza- 
tion, now turned their face eastward to Quincy, Illinois, where 
some of their members were already established. Not until April 
20 did the last of them leave Far West. The migration was 
attended with much suffering, as could not in such circumstances 
be avoided. The people of the counties through which they passed 
were, however, not hostile, and Mormon writers have testified that 
they received invitations to stop and settle. These were declined, 
and they pressed on to the banks of the Mississippi, where, in 
February and March, there were at one time more than 130 
families, waiting for the moving ice to enable them to cross, many 
of them without food, and the best sheltered depending on tents 
made of their bedclothing. 2 

What the total of the pecuniary losses of the Mormons in 
Missouri was cannot be accurately estimated. They asserted that 
in Jackson County alone $120,000 worth of their property was 
destroyed, and that fifteen thousand of their number fled from the 
state. Smith, in a statement of his losses made after his arrival in 
Illinois, placed them at $1,000,000. In a memorial presented to 
Congress at this time the losses in Jackson County were placed at 
$175,000, and in the state of Missouri at $2,000,000. The efforts 
of the Mormons to secure redress were long continued. Not only 
was Congress appealed to, but legislatures of other states were 

1 See M. Arthur's letter, " Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 94. 

2 Green's " Facts Relative to the Expulsion." 



2l8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



urged to petition in their behalf. The Senate committee at Wash- 
ington reported that the matter was entirely within the jurisdiction 
of the state of Missouri. One of the latest appeals was addressed 
by Smith at Nauvoo in December, 1843, to his native state, Ver- 
mont, calling on the Green Mountain boys, not only to assist him 
in attaining justice in Missouri, "but also to humble and chastise 
or abase her for the disgraces he has brought upon constitutional 
liberty, until she atones for her sin." 

The final act of the Mormon authorities in Missouri was some- 
what dramatic. Smith in his "revelation" of April 8, 1838, direct- 
ing the building of a Temple at Far West, had (the Lord speaking) 
ordered the beginning to be made on the following Fourth of July, 
adding, " in one year from this day let them recommence laying 
the foundation of my house." The anniversary found the latest 
Missouri Zion deserted, and its occupants fugitives ; but the com- 
mand of the Lord must be obeyed. Accordingly, the twelve 
Apostles journeyed secretly to Far West, arriving there about 
midnight of April 26, 1839. A conference was at once held, and, 
after transacting some miscellaneous business, including the expul- 
sion of certain seceding members, all adjourned to the selected site 
of the Temple, where, after the singing of a hymn, the foundation 
was relaid by rolling a large stone to one corner. 1 The Apostles 
then returned to Illinois as quietly as possible. The leader of this 
expedition was Brigham Young, who had succeeded T. B. Marsh 
as President of the Twelve. 

Thus ended the early history of the Mormon church in Mis- 
souri. 

1 The modern post-office name of Far West is Kerr. All the Mormon houses there 
have disappeared. Traces of the foundation of the Temple, which in places was built to 
a height of three or four feet, are still discernible. 



BOOK IV 



IN ILLINOIS 

CHAPTER I 
THE RECEPTION OF THE MORMONS 

The state of Illinois, when the Mormons crossed the Missouri 
River to settle in it, might still be considered a pioneer country. 
Iowa, to the west of it, was a territory, and only recently organized 
as such. The population of the whole state was only 467,183 in 
1840, as compared with 4,821,550 in 1900. Young as it was, how- 
ever, the state had had some severe financial experiences, which 
might have served as warnings to the new-comers. A debt of 
more than $14,000,000 had been contracted for state improvements, 
and not a railroad or a canal had been completed. "The people," 
says Ford, " looked one way and another with surprise, and were 
astonished at their own folly." The payment of interest on the 
state debt ceased after July, 1841, and "in a short time Illinois 
became a stench in the nostrils of the civilized world. . . . The 
impossibility of selling kept us from losing population ; the fear of 
disgrace or high taxes prevented us from gaining materially." 1 
The State Bank and the Shawneetown Bank failed in 1842, and 
when Ford became governor in that year he estimated that the 
good money in the state in the hands of the people did not exceed 
one year's interest on the public debt. 

The lawless conditions in many parts of the state in those days 
can scarcely be realized now. It was in 1847 that the Rev. Owen 
Lovejoy was killed at Alton in maintaining his right to print there 
an abolition newspaper. All over the state, settlers who had occu- 
pied lands as " squatters " defended their claims by force, and seri- 
ous mobs often resulted. Large areas of military lands were owned 

1 Ford's " History of Illinois," Chap. VII. 
219 



220 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



by non-residents, who were in very bad favor with the actual set- 
tlers. These settlers made free use of the timber on such lands, 
and the non-residents, failing to secure justice at law, finally hired 
preachers, who were paid by the sermon to preach against the sin 
of " hooking" timber. 1 

Bands of desperadoes in the northern counties openly defied 
the officers of the law, and, in one instance, burned down the court- 
house (in Ogle County in 1 841) in order to release some of their 
fellows who were awaiting trial. One of these gangs ten years 
earlier had actually built, in Pope County, a fort in which they 
defied the authorities, and against which a piece of artillery had 
to be brought before it could be taken. Even while the conflict 
between the Mormons was going on, in 1846, there was vitality 
enough in this old organization, in Pope and Massac counties, to 
call for the interposition of a band of " regulators," who made 
many arrests, not hesitating to employ torture to secure from one 
prisoner information about his associates. Governor Ford sent 
General J. T. Davies there, to try to effect a peaceable arrange- 
ment of the difficulties, but he failed to do so, and the " regula- 
tors," who found the county officers opposed to them, drove out of 
the county the sheriff, the county clerk, and the representative- 
elect to the legislature. When the judge of the Massac Circuit 
Court charged the grand jury strongly against the " regulators," 
they, with sympathizers from Kentucky, threatened to lynch him, 
and actually marched in such force to the county seat that the 
sheriff's posse surrendered, and the mob let their friends out of 
jail, and drowned some members of the posse in the Ohio River. 

The reception and treatment of the Mormons in Illinois, and 
the success of the new-comers in carrying out their business and 
political schemes, must be viewed in connection with these inci- 
dents in the early history of the state. 

The greeting of the Mormons in Illinois, in its practical shape, 
had both a political and a business reason. 2 Party feeling ran very 
high throughout the country in those days. The House of Repre- 
sentatives at Washington, after very great excitement, organized 

1 Ford's " History of Illinois," Chap. VI. 

2 " The first great error committed by the people of Hancock County was in accept- 
ing too readily the Mormon story of persecution. It was continually rung in their ears, 
and believed as often as asserted." — Gregg, "History of Hancock County," p. 270. 



THE RECEPTION OF THE MORMONS 



221 



early in December, 1839, Dv choosing a Whig Speaker, and at the 
same time the Whig National Convention, at Harrisburg, Pennsyl- 
vania, nominated General W. H. Harrison for President. Thus the 
expulsion from Missouri occurred on the eve of one of our most 
exciting presidential campaigns, and the Illinois politicians were 
quick to appraise the value of the voting strength of the immigrants. 
As a residence of six months in the state gave a man the right to 
vote, the Mormon vote would count in the presidential election. 

Accordingly, we find that in February, 1839, the Democratic 
Association of Quincy, at a public meeting in the court-house, 
received a report from a committee previously appointed, strongly 
in favor of the refugees, and adopted resolutions condemning the 
treatment of the Mormons by the people and officers of Missouri. 
The Quincy Argus declared that, because of this treatment, Mis- 
souri was " now so fallen that we could wish her star stricken out 
from the bright constellation of the Union." In April, 1839, 
Rigdon wrote to the "Saints in prison" that Governor Carlin of 
Illinois and his wife " enter with all the enthusiasm of their nature" 
into his plan to have the governor of each state present to Con- 
gress the unconstitutional course of Missouri toward the Mormons, 
with a view to federal relief. Governor Lucas of Iowa Territory, 
in the same year (Iowa had only been organized as a territory the 
year before, and was not admitted as a state until 1845), replying 
to a query about the reception the Mormons would receive in his 
domain, said : " Their religious opinions I consider have nothing 
to do with our political transactions. They are citizens of the 
United States, and are entitled to the same political rights and 
legal protection that other citizens are entitled to." He gave 
Rigdon at the same time cordial letters of introduction to President 
Van Buren and Governor Shannon of Ohio, and Rigdon received 
a similar letter to the President, recommending him "as a man of 
piety and a valuable citizen," signed by Governor Carlin, United 
States Senator Young, County Clerk Wren, and leading business 
men of Quincy. Thus began that recognition of the Mormons as 
a political power in Illinois which led to concessions to them that 
had so much to do with finally driving them into the wilderness. 

The business reason for the welcome of the Mormons in Illi- 
nois and Iowa was the natural ambition to secure an increase of 
population. In all of Hancock County there were in 1830 only 



222 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



483 inhabitants as compared with 32,215 in 1900. Along with 
this public view of the matter was a private one. A Dr. Isaac 
Galland owned (or claimed title to) a large tract of land on both sides 
of the border line between Illinois and Iowa, that in Iowa being 
included in what was known as "the half-breed tract," an area of 
some 119,000 acres which, by a treaty between the United States 
government and the Sacs and Foxes, was reserved to descendants 
of Indian women of those tribes by white fathers, and the title to 
much of which was in dispute. As soon as the Mormons began 
to cross into Illinois, Galland approached them with an offer of 
about 20,000 acres between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers 
at $2 per acre, to be paid in twenty annual instalments, without 
interest. A meeting of the refugees was held in Quincy in Febru- 
ary, 1839, to consider this offer, but the vote was against it. The 
failure of the efforts in Ohio and Missouri to establish the Mor- 
mons as a distinct community had made many of Smith's follow- 
ers sceptical about the success of any new scheme with this end in 
view, and at this conference several members, including so influen- 
tial a man as Bishop Partridge, openly expressed their doubt about 
the wisdom of another gathering of the Saints. Galland, however, 
pursued the subject in a letter to D. W. Rodgers, inviting Rigdon 
and others to inspect the tract with him, and assuring the Mormons 
of his sympathy in their sufferings, and " deep solicitude for your 
future triumphant conquest over every enemy." Rigdon, Partridge, 
and others accepted Galland's invitation, but reported against pur- 
chasing his land, and the refugees began scattering over the coun- 
try around Quincy. 



CHAPTER II 



THE SETTLEMENT OF NAUVOO 

Smith's leadership was now to have another illustration. 
Others might be discouraged by past persecutions and business 
failures, and be ready to abandon the great scheme which the 
prophet had so often laid before them in the language of " revela- 
tion " ; but it was no part of Smith's character to abandon that 
scheme, and remain simply an object of lessened respect, with a 
scattered congregation. He had been kept advised of Galland's 
proposal, and, two days after his arrival in Quincy, we find him, on 
April 24, presiding at a church council which voted to instruct him 
with two associates to visit Iowa and select there a location for a 
church settlement, and which advised all the brethren who could 
do so to move to the town of Commerce, Illinois. Thus were the 
doubters defeated, and the proposal to scatter the flock brought to 
a sudden end. Smith and his two associates set out at once to 
make their inspection. 

The town of Commerce had been laid out (on paper) in 1834 
by two Eastern owners of the property, A. White and J. B. Teas, 
and adjoining its northern border H. R. Hotchkiss of New Haven, 
Connecticut, had mapped out Commerce City. Neither enterprise 
had proved a success, and when the Mormon agents arrived there 
the place had scarcely attained the dignity of a settlement, the 
only buildings being one storehouse, two frame dwellings and two 
blockhouses. The Mormon agents, on May 1, bought two farms 
there, one for $5000 and one for $9000 (known afterward as the 
White purchase), and on August 9 they bought of Hotchkiss five 
hundred acres for the sum of $53,500. Bishop Knight, for the 
church, soon afterward purchased part of the town of Keokuk, 
Iowa, a town called Nashville six miles above, a part of the town 
of Montrose, four miles above Nashville, and thirty thousand acres 

223 



224 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



in the " half-breed tract," which included Galland's original offer, 
and ten thousand acres additional. 

Thus was Smith prepared to make another attempt to estab- 
lish his followers in a permanent abiding-place. But how, it may 
be asked, could the prophet reconcile this abandonment of the 
Missouri Zion and this new site for a church settlement with pre- 
vious revelations ? By further " revelation," of course. Such a 
mouthpiece of God can always enlighten his followers provided he 
can find speech, and Smith was not slow of utterance. While in 
jail in Liberty he had advised a committee which was sent to him 
from Illinois to sell all the lands in Missouri, and in a letter to the 
Saints, written while a prisoner, he spoke favorably of Galland's 
offer, saying, " The Saints ought to lay hold of every door that 
shall seem to be opened unto them to obtain foothold on the 
earth." In order to make perfectly clear the new purpose of the 
Lord in regard to Zion he gave out a long " revelation " (Sec. 124), 
which is dated Nauvoo, January 19, 1841, and which contains the 
following declarations : — 

" Verily, verily I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to any of the 
sons of men to do a work under my name, and those sons of men go with all 
their might and with all they have, to perform that work and cease not their dili- 
gence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder them from performing that 
work, behold, it behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those 
sons of men, but to accept their offerings. 

" And the iniquity and transgression of my holy laws and commandments I 
will visit upon the heads of those who hindered my work, unto the third and 
fourth generation, so long as they repent not and hate me, saith the Lord God. 

" Therefore for this cause have I accepted the offerings of those whom I 
commanded to build up a city and house unto my name in Jackson County, Mis- 
souri, and were hindered by their enemies, saith the Lord your God." 

This announcement seems to have been accepted without 
question by the faithful, as reconciling the failure in Missouri with 
the new establishment farther east. 

The financiering of the new land purchases did credit to Smith's 
genius in that line. For some of the smaller tracts a part payment 
in cash was made. Hotchkiss accepted for his land two notes 
signed by Smith and his brother Hyrum and Rigdon, one paya- 
ble in ten, and the other in twenty years. Galland took notes, 
and, some time later, as explained in a letter to the Saints abroad, 
the Mormon lands in Missouri, " in payment for the whole amount, 



THE SETTLEMENT OF NAUVOO 



225 



and in addition to the first purchase we have exchanged lands with 
him in Missouri to the amount of $80,000." 1 Galland's title to the 
Iowa tract was vigorously assailed by Iowa newspapers some years 
later. What cash he eventually realized from the transaction does 
not appear. 2 Smith had influence enough over him to secure his 
conversion to the Mormon belief, and he will be found associated 
with the leaders in Nauvoo enterprises. 

The Hotchkiss notes gave Smith a great deal of trouble. Not- 
withstanding the influx of immigrants to Nauvoo and the growth of 
the place, which ought to have brought in large profits from the 
sale of lots, the accrued interest due to Hotchkiss in two years 
amounted to about $6000. Hotchkiss earnestly urged its pay- 
ment, and Smith was in dire straits to meet his demands. In a 
correspondence between them, in 1841, Smith told Hotchkiss that 
he had agreed to forego interest for five years, and not to " force 
payment " even then. Smith assured Hotchkiss that the part of 
the city bought from him was " a deathly sickly hole " on which 
they had been able to realize nothing, " although," he added, with 
unblushing affrontery for the head of a church, "we have been 
keeping up appearances and holding out inducements to encourage 
immigration that we scarcely think justifiable in consequence of 
the mortality that almost invariably awaits those who come from 
far distant parts." 3 In pursuance of this same policy (in a letter 
dated October 12, 1841), the Eastern brethren were urged to trans- 
fer their lands there to Hotchkiss in payment of the notes, and to 
accept lots in Nauvoo from the church in exchange. 

The name of the town was changed to Nauvoo in April, 1840, 
with the announcement that this name was of Hebrew origin, sig- 
nifying " a beautiful place." 4 

1 Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 275. 

2 " Galland died a pauper in Iowa." — " Mormon Portraits," p. 253. 

3 Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 631. 

4 In answer to a query about this alleged derivation of the name of the city, a com- 
petent Hebrew scholar writes to me : "The nearest approach to Nauvoo in Hebrew is an 
adjective which would be transliterated Naveh, meaning pleasant, a rather rare word. 
The letter correctly represented by v could not possibly do the double duty of uv, nor 
could a of the Hebrew ever be au in English, nor eh of the Hebrew be 00 in English. 
Students of theology at Middletown, Connecticut, used to have a saying that that name 
was derived from Moses by dropping ' iddletown ' and adding ' oses.' " 



Q 



CHAPTER III 



THE BUILDING UP OF THE CITY — FOREIGN PROSELYTING 

The geographical situation of Nauvoo had something in its 
favor. Lying on the east bank of the Mississippi, which is there 
two miles wide, it had a water frontage on three sides, because of 
a bend in the stream, and the land was somewhat* rising back from 
the river. But its water front was the only thing in its favor. " The 
place was literally a wilderness," says Smith. "The land was 
mostly covered with trees and bushes, and much of it so wet that 
it was with the utmost difficulty a foot man could get through, and 
totally impossible for teams. Commerce was so unhealthy very 
few could live there, but, believing it might become a healthy place 
by the blessing of heaven to the Saints, and no more eligible place 
presenting itself, I considered it wisdom to make an attempt to 
build up a city." 

Contemporary accounts say that most of the refugees from 
Missouri suffered from chills and fevers during their first year 
in the new settlement. Smith, in his autobiography, laments the 
mortality among the settlers. The Rev. Henry Caswall, in his 
description of three days at Nauvoo in 1842, says: — 

" I was informed again and again in Montrose, Iowa, that nearly half of the 
English who emigrated to Nauvoo in 1841 died soon after their arrival. ... In 
his sermon at Montrose in May 9, 1841, the following words of most Christian 
consolation were delivered by the Prophet to the poor deluded English : ' Many 
of the English who have lately come here have expressed great disappointment 
on their arrival. Such persons have every reason to be satisfied in this beautiful 
and fertile country. If they choose to complain, they may ; but I don't want to 
be troubled with their complaints. If they are not satisfied here, I have only this 
to say to them, " Don't stay whining about me, but go back to England, and go to 
h land bed d."'" 1 



1 "City of the Mormons," p. 55. 
226 



THE BUILDING UP OF THE CITY 



227 



Brigham Young, in after years, thus spoke of Smith's exhibi- 
tion of miraculous healing during the year after their arrival in 
Illinois : " Joseph commenced in his own house and dooryard, 
commanding the sick, in the name of Jesus Christ, to arise and be 
made whole, and they were healed according to his word. He 
then continued to travel from house to house, healing the sick as 
he went." 1 Any attempt to reconcile this statement by Young 
with the previously cited testimony about the mortality of the place 
would be futile. 

The growth of the town, however, was more rapid than that of 
any of the former Mormon settlements. The United States census 
shows that the population of Hancock County, Illinois, increased 
from 483 in 1830 to 9946 in 1840. Statements regarding the popu- 
lation of Nauvoo during the Mormon occupancy are conflicting and 
often exaggerated. In a letter to the elders in England, printed in 
the Times and Seasons of January 1, 1841, Smith said, " There are 
at present about 3000 inhabitants in Nauvoo." The same periodi- 
cal, in an article on the city, on December 15, 1841, said that it was 
"a densely populated city of near 10,000 inhabitants." A visitor, 
describing the place in a letter in the Columbus (Ohio) Advocate 
of March, 1842, said that it contained about 7000 persons, and that 
the buildings were small and much scattered, log cabins predomi- 
nating. The Times and Seasons of October, 1842, said, " It will 
be no more than probably correct if we allow the city to contain 
between 7000 and 8000 houses, with a population of 14,000 or 
15,000," with two steam mills and other manufacturing concerns 
in operation. W. W. Phelps estimated the population in 1844 at 
14,000, almost all professed Mormons. The Times and Seasons in 
1845 said that a census just taken showed a population of 11,057 
in the city and one-third more outside the city limits. 

As soon as the Mormons arrived, Nauvoo was laid out in blocks 
measuring about 180 by 200 feet, with a river frontage of more 
than three miles. An English visitor to the place in 1843 wrote: 
" The city is of great dimensions, laid out in beautiful order ; the 
streets are wide and cross each other at right angles, which will 
add greatly to its order and magnificence when finished. The city 
rises on a quick incline from the rolling Mississippi, and as you 
stand near the Temple you may gaze on the picturesque scenery 

1 " Life of Brigham Young" (Cannon & Son, publishers), p. 32. 



228 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



round. At your side is the Temple, the wonder of the world ; 
round about and beneath you may behold handsome stores, large 
mansions, and fine cottages, interspersed with varied scenery." 1 

Whatever the exact population of the place may have been, its 
rapid growth is indisputable. The cause of this must be sought, 
not in natural business reasons, such as have given a permanent 
increase of population to so many of our Western cities, but chiefly 
in active and aggressive proselyting work both in this country and 
in Europe. This work was assisted by the sympathy which the 
treatment of the Mormons had very generally secured for them. 
Copies of Mormon Bibles were rare outside of the hands of the 
brethren, and the text of Smith's " revelations " bearing on his 
property designs in Missouri was known to comparatively few even 
in the church. While the Nauvoo edition of the " Doctrine and 
Covenants " was in course of publication, the Times and Seasons, 
on January I, 1842, said that it would be published in the spring, 
" but, many of our readers being deprived of the privilege of pe- 
rusing its valuable pages, we insert the first section." Mormon 
emissaries took advantage of this situation to tell their story in 
their own way at all points of the compass. Meetings were held 
in the large cities of the Eastern states to express sympathy with 
these victims of the opponents of "freedom of religious opinion," 
and to raise money for their relief, and the voice of the press, from 
the Mississippi to the Atlantic, was, without a discovered exception, 
on the side of the refugees. 

This paved the way for a vast extension of that mission work 
which began with the trip of Cowdery and his associates in 1830, 
was expanded throughout this country while the Saints were at 
Kirtland, and was extended to foreign lands in 1837. The mis- 
sionaries sent out in the early days of the church represented vari- 
ous degrees of experience and qualification. There were among 
them men like Orson Hyde and Willard Richards, who, although 
they gave up secular callings on entering the church, were close 
students of the Scriptures and debaters who could hold their own, 
when it came to an interpretation of the Scriptures, before any 
average audience. Many were sent out without any especial equip- 
ment for their task. John D. Lee, describing his first trip, says : 
" I started forth an illiterate, inexperienced person, without purse 

1 Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 128. 



THE BUILDING UP OF THE CITY 



229 



or scrip. I could hardly quote a passage of Scripture. Yet I 
went forth to say to the world that I was a minister of the Gos- 
pel." He was among the successful proselyters, and rose to in- 
fluence in the church. 1 Of the requirement that the missionaries 
should be beggars, Lorenzo Snow, who was sent out on a mis- 
sion from Kirtland in 1837, says, " It was a severe trial to my 
natural feelings of independence to go without purse or scrip — 
especially the purse ; for, from the time I was old enough to work, 
the feeling that 1 1 paid my way ' always seemed a necessary adjunct 
to self respect." 

Parley P. Pratt, in a letter to Smith from New York in Novem- 
ber, 1839, describing the success of the work in the United States, 
says, " You would now find churches of the Saints in Philadel- 
phia, in Albany, in Brooklyn, in New York, in Sing Sing, in Jer- 
sey, in Pennsylvania, on Long Island, and in various other places 
all around us," and he speaks of the "spread of the work" in 
Michigan and Maine. 

The importance of England as a field from which to draw emi- 
grants to the new settlement was early recognized at Nauvoo, and 
in 1840 such lights of the church as Brigham Young, Heber C. 
Kimball, P. P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, 
and George A. Smith, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, 
were sent to cultivate that field. There they ordained Willard 
Richards an Apostle, preached and labored for over a year, estab- 
lished a printing-office which turned out a vast amount of Mormon 
literature, including their Bible and " Doctrine and Covenants," 
and began the publication of the Millennial Star. 

In 1840 Orson Hyde was sent on a mission to the Jews in Lon- 
don, Amsterdam, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, and the same 
year missionaries were sent to Australia, Wales, Ireland, the Isle 
of Man, and the East Indies. In 1844 a missionary was sent to 
the Sandwich Islands; in 1849 others were sent to France, Den- 
mark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland, Italy, and Switzerland ; in 
1850 ten more elders were sent to the Sandwich Islands; in 185 1 
four converts were baptized in Hindostan ; in 1852 a branch of the 
church was organized at Malta; in 1853 three elders reached the 
Cape of Good Hope; and in 1861 two began work in Holland, 
but with poor success. We shall see that this proselyting labor has 

1 For an account of his travels and successes, see " Mormonism Unveiled." 



230 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



continued with undiminished industry to the present day, in all 
parts of the United States as well as in foreign lands. 

England provided an especially promising field for Mormon 
missionary work. The great manufacturing towns contained hun- 
dreds of people, densely ignorant, 1 superstitious, and so poor that 
the ownership of a piece of land in their own country was practi- 
cally beyond the limit of their ambition. These people were nat- 
urally susceptible to the Mormon teachings, easily imposed upon 
by stories of alleged miracles, and ready to migrate to any part of 
the earth where a building lot or a farm was promised them. The 
letters from the first missionaries in England gave glowing reports 
of the results of their labors. Thus Wilford Woodruff, writing 
from Manchester in 1840, said, "The work has been so rapid it 
was impossible to ascertain the exact number belonging to each 
branch, but the whole number is 33 churches, 534 members, 75 
officers, all of which had embraced the work in less than four 
months." Lorenzo Snow, in a letter from London in April, 1841, 
said : " Throughout all England, in almost every town and city 
of any considerable importance, we have chapels or public halls in 
which we meet for public worship. All over this vast kingdom 
the laws of Zion are rolling onward with the most astonishing 
rapidity." 

The visiting missionaries began their work in England at 
Preston, Lancashire, in 1836 or 1837, and soon secured there some 
five hundred converts. Then they worked on each side of the 
Ribble, making converts in all the villages, and gaining over a few 
farm owners and mechanics of some means. Their method was 
first to drop hints to the villagers that the Holy Bible is defective 
in translation and incomplete, and that the Mormon Bible corrects 
all these defects. Not able to hold his own in any theological 
discussion, the rustic was invited to a meeting. At that meeting 
the missionary would announce that he would speak simply as 
the Lord directed him, and he would then present the Mormon 
view of their Bible and prophet. As soon as converts were won 
over, they were immersed, at night, and given the sacrament. 
Then they were initiated into the secret "church meeting," to 

1 " It has been calculated that there are in England and Wales six million persons 
who can neither read nor write, that is to say, about one-third of the population, includ- 
ing, of course, infants; but of all the children more than one-half attend no place of 
public instruction." — Dickens, " Household Words." 



THE BUILDING UP OF THE CITY 



231 



which only the faithful were admitted, and where the flock were 
told of visions and " gifts," and exhorted to stand firm (along with 
their earthly goods) for the church, and warned against apostasy. 

One way in which the prophetic gift of the missionaries was 
proved in the early days in England was as follows : " Whenever 
a candidate was immersed, some of the brethren was given a 
letter signed by Hyde and Kimball, setting forth that 'brother 

will not abide in the spirit of the Lord, but will reject the 

truth, and become the enemy of the people of God, etc., etc.* If 
the brother did not apostatize, this letter remained unopened ; if 
he did, it was read as a striking verification of prophecy." 1 

Miracles exerted a most potent influence among the people 
in England with whom the early missionaries labored, and the 
Millennial Star contains a long list of reported successes in this 
line. There are accounts of very clumsy tricks that were at- 
tempted to carry out the deception. Thus, at Newport, Wales, 
three Mormon elders announced that they would raise a dead 
man to life. The " corpse " was laid out and surrounded by 
weeping friends, and the elders were about to begin their incan- 
tations, when a doubting Thomas in the audience attacked the 
" corpse " with a whip, and soon had him fleeing for dear life. 2 

Thomas Webster, who was baptized in England in 1837 by 
Orson Hyde and became an elder, saw the falsity of the Mormon 
professions through the failure of their miracles and other pre- 
tensions, and, after renouncing their faith, published a pamphlet 
exposing their methods. He relates many of the declarations 
made by the first missionaries in Preston to their ignorant hearers. 
Hyde declared that the apostles Peter, James, and John were still 
alive. He and Kimball asserted that neither of them would 
" taste death " before Christ's second coming. At one meeting 
Kimball predicted that in ten or fifteen years the sea would be 
dried up between Liverpool and America. " One of the most 
glaring things they ever brought before the public," says Webster, 
" was stated in a letter written by Orson Hyde to the brethren in 
Preston, saying they were on the way to the promised land in 
Missouri by hundreds, and the wagons reached a mile in length. 
They fell in with some of their brethren in Canada, who told him 

1 Caswall's " City of the Mormons," appendix. 

2 Tract by Rev. F. B. Ashley, p. 22. 



232 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the Lord had been raining down manna in rich profusion, which 
covered from seven to ten acres of land. It was like wafers 
dipped in honey, and both Saints and sinners partook of it. I 
was present in the pulpit when this letter was read." 

However ridiculous such methods may appear, their success in 
Great Britain was great. 1 In three years after the arrival of the 
first missionaries, the General Conference reported a membership 
of 4019 in England alone; in 1850 the General Conference re- 
ported that the Mormons in England and Scotland numbered 
27,863, and in Wales 4342. The report for June, 185 1, showed 
a total of 30,747 in the United Kingdom, and said, " During the 
last fourteen years more than 50,000 have been baptized in Eng- 
land, of which nearly 17,000 have migrated from her shores to 
Zion." In the years between 1840 and 1843 it was estimated that 
3758 foreign converts settled in and around Nauvoo. 2 

The emigration of Mormon converts from Great Britain to 
the United States, in its earlier stages, was thoroughly systemized 
by the church authorities in this country. The first record of the 
movement of any considerable body tells of a company of about 
two hundred who sailed for New York from Liverpool in Aug- 
ust, 1840, on the ship North American, in charge of two elders. 
A second vessel with emigrants, the Sheffield, sailed from Bristol 
to New York in February, 1841. The expense of the trip from 
New York to Nauvoo proved in excess of the means of many of 
these immigrants, some of whom were obliged to stop at Kirtland 
and other places in Ohio. This led to a change of route, by which 
vessels sailed from British ports direct to New Orleans, the im- 
migrants ascending the Mississippi to Nauvoo. 

1 "There is no page of religious history which more proudly tells its story than that 
which relates this peculiar phase of Mormon experience. The excitement was contagious, 
even affecting persons in the higher ranks of social life, and the result was a grand out- 
pouring of spiritual and miraculous healing power of the most astonishing description. 
Miracles were heard of everywhere, and numerous competent and most reliable witnesses 
bore testimony to their genuineness." — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 10. 

2 Two of the most intelligent English converts, who did proselyting work for the 
church and in later years saw their error, have given testimony concerning this work in 
Great Britain. John Hyde, Jr., summing up in 1857 the proselyting system, said : " Enthu- 
siasm is the secret of the great success of Mormon proselyting; it is the universal char- 
acteristic of the people when proselyted; it is the hidden and strong cord that leads them 
to Utah, and the iron clamp that keeps them there." — " Mormonism," p. 171. 

Stenhouse says : " Mormonism in England, Scotland and Wales was a grand triumph, 
and was fast ripening for a vigorous campaign in Continental Europe " (when polygamy 
was pronounced). 



THE BUILDING UP OF THE CITY 



233 



The extent of this movement to the time of the departure of the 
Saints from Nauvoo is thus given by James Linforth, who says the 
figures are " as complete and correct as it is possible now to make 
them " 1 1 — 

Year No. of Vessels No. of Emigrants 

1840 I 200 

1841 6 1 177 

1842 8 1614 

1843 5 769 

1844 5 644 
1845-46 3 J46 

Total 3750 

The Mormon agents in England would charter a vessel at an 
English port 2 when a sufficient company had assembled and an- 
nounce their intention to embark. The emigrants would be noti- 
fied of the date of sailing, and an agent would accompany them all 
the way to Nauvoo. Men with money were especially desired, as 
were mechanics of all kinds, since the one sound business view that 
seems to have been taken by the leaders at Nauvoo was that it 
would be necessary to establish manufactures there if the people 
were to be able to earn a living. In some instances the passage 
money was advanced to the converts. 

1 " Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley," 1855. 

2 For Dickens's description of one of these vessels ready to sail, see " The Uncom- 
mercial Traveller," Chap. XXII. 



^CHAPTER IV 

THE NAUVOO CITY GOVERNMENT — TEMPLE AND OTHER 

BUILDINGS 

A tide of immigration having been turned toward the new 
settlement, the next thing in order was to procure for the city a 
legal organization. Several circumstances combined to place in 
the hands of the Mormon leaders a scheme of municipal govern- 
ment, along with an extensive plan for buildings, which gave them 
vast power without incurring the kind of financial rocks on which 
they were wrecked in Ohio. 

Dr. Galland 1 should probably be considered the inventor of the 
general scheme adopted at Nauvoo. He was at that time a resi- 
dent of Cincinnati, but his intercourse with the Mormons had inter- 
ested him in their beliefs, and some time in 1840 he addressed a 
letter to Elder R. B. Thompson, which gave the church leaders 
some important advice. 2 First warning them that to promulgate 
new doctrinal tenets will require not only tact and energy, but moral 
conduct and industry among their people, he confessed that he had 
not been able to discover why their religious views were not based 
on truth. " The project of establishing extraordinary religious doc- 
trines being magnificent in its character," he went on to say, would 
require "preparations commensurate with the plan." Nauvoo be- 
ing a suitable rallying-place, they would "want a temple that for 
size, proportions and style shall attract, surprise and dazzle all 
beholders"; something "unique externally, and in the interior 
peculiar, imposing and grand." The " clergymen " must be of the 

1 "In the year 1834 one Dr. Galland was a candidate for the legislature in a district 
composed of Hancock, Adams, and Pike Counties. He resided in the county of Han- 
cock, and, as he had in the early part of his life been a notorious horse thief and coun- 
terfeiter, belonging to the Massac gang, and was then no pretender to integrity, it was 
useless to deny the charge. In all his speeches he freely admitted the fact." — Ford's 
" History of Illinois," p. 406. 

2 Times and Seasons, Vol. II, pp. 277-278. The letter is signed with eight asterisks 
Galland's usual signature to such communications. 

234 



THE NAUVOO CITY GOVERNMENT 



235 



best as regards mental and vocal equipment, and there should be a 
choir such as " was never before organized." A college, too, would 
be of great value if funds for it could be collected. 

These suggestions were accepted by Smith, with some impor- 
tant additional details, and they found place in the longest of the 
" revelations " given out by him in Illinois (Sec. 124), the one, previ- 
ously quoted from, in which the Lord excused the failure to set up 
a Zion in Missouri. There seemed to be some hesitation about 
giving out this " revelation." It is dated after the meeting of the 
General Conference at Nauvoo which ordered the building of a 
church there, and it was not published in the Times and Seasons 
until the following June, and then not entire. The "revelation" 
shows how little effect adversity had had in modifying the prophet's 
egotism, his arrogance, or his aggressiveness. 

Starting out with, " Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my 
servant Joseph Smith, I am well pleased with your offerings and 
acknowledgments," it calls on him to make proclamation to the 
kings of the world, the President of the United States, and the 
governors of the states concerning the Lord's will, " fearing them 
not, for they are as grass," and warning them of " a day of visita- 
tion if they reject my servants and my testimony." Various 
direct commands to leading members of the church follow. Gal- 
land here found himself in Smith's clutches, being directed to "put 
stock " into the boarding-house to be built. 

The ^principal commands in this " revelation " directed the 
building of another "holy house," or Temple, and a boarding- 
house. With regard to the Temple it was explained that the 
Lord would show Smith everything about it, including its site. 
All the Saints from afar were ordered to come to Nauvoo, " with 
all your gold, and your silver, and your precious stones, and with 
all your antiquities, . . . and bring the box tree, and the fir tree, 
and the pine tree, together with all the precious trees of the earth, 
and with iron, with copper, and with brass, and with zinc, and 
with all your most precious things of the earth." 

The boarding-house ordered built was to be called Nauvoo 
House, and was to be "a house that strangers may come from 
afar to lodge therein, ... a resting place for the weary traveler, 
that he may contemplate the glory of Zion." It was explained 
that a company must be formed, the members of which should 



236 THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 

pay not less than $50 a share for the stock, no subscriber to be 
allotted more than $1500 worth. 

This "revelation" further announced once more that Joseph 
was to be " a presiding elder over all my church, to be a trans- 
lator, a revelator, a seer and a prophet," with Sidney Rigdcn and 
William Law his counsellors, to constitute with him the First 
Presidency, and Brigham Young to be president over the twelve 
travelling council. 

Legislation was, of course, necessary to carry out the large 
schemes that the Mormon leaders had in mind ; but this was 
secured at the state capital with a liberality that now seems 
amazing. This was due to the desire of the politicians of all 
parties to conciliate the Mormon vote, and to the good fortune of 
the Mormons in finding at the capital a very practical lobbyist 
to engineer their cause. This was a Dr. John C. Bennett, a man 
who seems to have been without any moral character, but who 
had filled positions of importance. Born in Massachusetts in 
1804, he practised as a physician in Ohio, and later in Illinois, 
holding a professorship in Willoughby University, Ohio, and 
taking with him to Illinois testimonials as to his professional skill. 
In the latter state he showed a taste for military affairs, and after 
being elected brigadier general of the Invincible Dragoons, he 
was appointed quartermaster general of the state in 1840, and 
held that position at the state capital when the Mormons applied 
to the legislature for a charter for Nauvoo. 

With his assistance there was secured from the legislature an 
act incorporating the city of Nauvoo, the Nauvoo Legion, and the 
University of the City of Nauvoo. The powers granted to the 
city government thus established were extraordinary. A City 
Council was authorized, consisting of the mayor, four aldermen, 
and nine councillors, which was empowered to pass any ordinances, 
not in conflict with the federal and state constitutions, which it 
deemed necessary for the peace and order of the city. The 
mayor and aldermen were given all the power of justices of the 
peace, and they were to constitute the Municipal Court. The 
charter gave the mayor sole jurisdiction in all cases arising under 
the city ordinances, with a right of appeal to the Municipal Court. 
Further than this, the charter granted to the Municipal Court the 
right to issue writs of habeas corpus in all cases arising under the 



THE NAUVOO CITY GOVERNMENT 



237 



city ordinances. Thirty-six sections were required to define the 
legislative powers of the City Council. 

A more remarkable scheme of independent local government 
could not have been devised even by the leaders of this Mormon 
church, and the short-sightedness of the law makers in consenting 
to it seems nothing short of marvellous. Under it the mayor, who 
helped to make the local laws (as a member of the City Council), 
was intrusted with their enforcement, and he could, as the head 
of the Municipal Court, give them legal interpretation. Governor 
Ford afterward defined the system as "a government within a 
government ; a legislature to pass ordinances at war with the laws 
of the state ; courts to execute them with but little dependence 
upon the constitutional judiciary, and a military force at their own 
command." 1 

This military force, called the Nauvoo Legion, the City Council 
was authorized to organize from the inhabitants of the city who 
were subject to military duty. It was to be at the disposal of the 
mayor in executing city laws and ordinances, and of the governor 
of the state for the public defence. When organized, it embraced 
three classes of troops — flying artillery, lancers, and riflemen. Its 
independence of state control was provided for by a provision of 
law which allowed it to be governed by a court martial of its own 
officers. The view of its independence taken by the Mormons may 
be seen in the following general order signed by Smith and Ben- 
nett in May, 1841, founded on an opinion by Judge Stephen A. 
Douglas : — 

" The officers and privates belonging to the Legion are exempt from all mili- 
tary duty not required by the legally constituted authorities thereof ; they are 
therefore expressly inhibited from performing any military service not ordered 
by the general officers, or directed by the court martial." 2 

1 A bill repealing this charter was passed by the Illinois House on February 3, 1843, 
by a vote of fifty-eight to thirty-three, but failed in the Senate by a vote of sixteen ayes 
to seventeen nays. 

2 Tunes and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 417. Governor Ford commissioned Brigham 
Young to succeed Smith as lieutenant general of the Legion from August 31, 1844. To 
show the Mormon idea of authority, the following is quoted from Tullidge's " Life of 
Brigham Young," p. 30 : " It is a singular fact that, after Washington, Joseph Smith was 
the first man in America who held the rank of lieutenant general, and that Brigham 
Young was the next. In reply to a comment by the author upon this fact Brigham 
Young said : ' I was never much of a military man. The commission has since been 
abrogated by the state of Illinois; but if Joseph had lived when the [Mexican] war 
broke out he would have become commander-in-chief of the United States armies.'" 



238 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



In other words, this city military company was entirely inde- 
pendent of even the governor of the state. Little wonder that the 
Presidency, writing about the new law to the Saints abroad, said, 
"'Tis all we ever claimed." In view of the experience of the Mis- 
sourians with the Mormons as directed by Smith and Rigdon, it 
would be rash to say that they would have been tolerated as neigh- 
bors in Illinois under any circumstances, after their actual acquain- 
tance had been made ; but if the state of Illinois had deliberately 
intended to incite the Mormons to a reckless assertion of indepen- 
dence, nothing could have been planned that would have accom- 
plished this more effectively than the passage of the charter of 
Nauvoo. 

What next followed remains an unexplained incident in Joseph 
Smith's career. Instead of taking the mayoralty himself, he allowed 
that office to be bestowed upon Bennett, Smith and Rigdon accept- 
ing places among the councillors, Bennett having taken up his 
residence in Nauvoo in September, 1840. His election as mayor 
took place in February, 1841. Bennet was also chosen major gen- 
eral of the Legion when that force was organized, was selected as 
the first chancellor of the new university, and was elected to the 
First Presidency of the church in the following April, to take the 
place of Sidney Rigdon during the incapacity of the latter from 
illness. Judge Stephen A. Douglas also appointed him a master 
in chancery. 

Bennett was introduced to the Mormon church at large in a 
letter signed by Smith, Rigdon, and brother Hyrum, dated Janu- 
ary 15, 1 84 1, as the first of the new acquisitions of influence. They 
stated that his sympathies with the Saints were aroused while they 
were still in Missouri, and that he then addressed them a letter 
offering them his assistance, and the church was assured that "he 
is a man of enterprise, extensive acquirements, and of independent 
mind, and is calculated to be a great blessing to our community." 
When his appointment as a master in chancery was criticised by 
some Illinois newspapers, the Mormons defended him earnestly. 
Sidney Rigdon (then attorney-at-law and postmaster at Nauvoo), 
in a letter dated April 23, 1842, said, " He is a physician of great 
celebrity, of great versatility of talent, of refined education and 
accomplished manners ; discharges the duties of his respective 
offices with honor to himself and credit to the people." All this 



THE NAUVOO CITY GOVERNMENT 



239 



becomes of interest in the light of the abuse which the Mormons 
soon after poured out upon this man when he " betrayed " them. 

Bennett's inaugural address as mayor was radical in tone. He 
advised the Council to prohibit all dram shops, allowing no liquor 
to be sold in a quantity less than a quart. This suggestion was 
carried out in a city ordinance. He condemned the existing sys- 
tem of education, which gave children merely a smattering of 
everything, and made " every boarding school miss a Plato in petti- 
coats, without an ounce of genuine knowledge," pleading for edu- 
cation " of a purely practical character." The Legion he considered 
a matter of immediate necessity, and he added, " The winged war- 
rior of the air perches upon the pole of American liberty, and the 
beast that has the temerity to ruffle her feathers should be made to 
feel the power of her talons." 

Smith was commissioned lieutenant general of this Legion by 
Governor Carlin on February 3, 1841, and he and Bennett blos- 
somed out at once as gorgeous commanders. An order was issued 
requiring all persons in the city, of military obligation, between the 
ages of eighteen and forty-five, to join the Legion, and on the occa- 
sion of the laying of the corner-stone of the Temple, on April 6, 
1 841, it comprised fourteen companies. An army officer passing 
through Nauvoo in September, 1842, expressed the opinion that 
the evolutions of the Legion would do honor to any militia in the 
United States, but he queried: "Why this exact discipline of the 
Mormon corps ? Do they intend to conquer Missouri, Illinois, 
Mexico ? Before many years this Legion will be twenty, perhaps 
fifty, thousand strong and still augmenting. A fearful host, filled 
with religious enthusiasm, and led on by ambitious and talented 
officers, what may not be effected by them ? Perhaps the subver- 
sion of the constitution of the United States." 1 

Contemporary accounts of the appearance of the Legion on the 
occasion of the laying of the Temple corner-stone indicate that the 
display was a big one for a frontier settlement. Smith says in his 
autobiography, " The appearance, order, and movements of the 
Legion were chaste, grand, imposing." The Times and Seasons, 
in its report of the day's doings, says that General Smith had a 
staff of four aides-de-camp and twelve guards, "nearly all in splen- 
did uniforms. The several companies presented a beautiful and 

1 Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 121. 



240 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



interesting spectacle, several of them being uniformed and equipped, 
while the rich and costly dresses of the officers would have become a 
Bonaparte or a Washington." Ladies on horseback were an added 
feature of the procession. The ceremonies attending the corner- 
stone laying attracted the people from all the outlying districts, 
and marked an epoch in the church's history in Illinois. 

The Temple at Nauvoo measured 83 by 128 feet on the ground, 
and was nearly 60 feet high, surmounted by a steeple which was 
planned to be more than 100 feet in height. The material was 
white limestone, which was found underlying the site of the city. 
The work of construction continued throughout the occupation of 
Nauvoo by the Mormons, the laying of the capstone not being 
accomplished until May 24, 1845, and the dedication taking place 
on May 1, 1846. The cost of the completed structure was esti- 
mated by the Mormons at $ 1,000,00c). 1 Among the costly features 
were thirty stone pilasters, which cost $3000 each. 

The portico of the Temple was surrounded by these pilasters 
of polished stone, on the base of which was carved a new moon, 
the capital of each being a representation of the rising sun coming 
from under a cloud, supported by two hands holding a trumpet. 
Under the tower were the words, in golden letters : " The House 
of the Lord, built by the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Com- 
menced April 6, 1 841. Holiness to the Lord." The baptismal 
font measured twelve by sixteen feet, with a basin four fet leep. 
It was supported by twelve oxen " carved out of fine plan 1 glued 
together," says Smith, "and copied after the most beauthul five- 
year-old steer that could be found." From the basement two 
stairways led to the main floor, around the sides of which were 
small rooms designed for various uses. In the large room on this 
floor were three pulpits and a place for the choir. The upper floor 
contained a large hall, and around this were twelve smaller rooms. 

The erection of this Temple was carried on without incurring 
such debts or entering upon such money-making schemes as caused 
disaster at Kirtland. Labor and material were secured by success- 

1 "The Temple is said to have cost, in labor and money, a million dollars. It may 
be possible, and it is very probable, that contributions to that amount were made to it, 
but that it cost that much to build it few will believe. Half that sum would be ample 
to build a much more costly edifice to-day, and in the three or four years in which it was 
being erected, labor was cheap and all the necessaries of life remarkably low." — Gregg's 
" History of Hancock County," p. 367. 



THE NAUVOO CITY GOVERNMENT 



241 



ful appeals to the Saints on the ground and throughout the world. 
Here the tithing system inaugurated in Missouri played an efficient 
part. A man from the neighboring country who took produce to 
Nauvoo for sale or barter said, " In the committee rooms they had 
almost every conceivable thing, from all kinds of implements and 
men and women's clothing, down to baby clothes and trinkets, 
which had been deposited by the owners as tithing or for the 
benefit of the Temple." 1 

Nauvoo House, as planned, was to have a frontage of two 
hundred feet and a depth of forty feet, and to be three stories in 
height, with a basement. Its estimated cost was $ioo,ooo. 2 A 
detailed explanation of the uses of this house was thus given in a 
letter from the Twelve to the Saints abroad, dated November 15, 
1841 : — 

" The time set to favor the Stakes of Zion is at hand, and soon the kings and 
the queens, the princes and the nobles, the rich and the honorable of the earth, 
will come up hither to visit the Temple of our God, and to inquire concerning 
this strange work ; and as kings are to become nursing fathers, and queens nurs- 
ing mothers in the habitation of the righteous, it is right to render honor to whom 
honor is due ; and therefore expedient that such, as well as the Saints, should 
have a comfortable house for boarding and lodging when they come hither, and 
it is according to the revelations that such a house should be built. . . . All are 
under equal obligations to do all in their power to complete the buildings by 
their faith and their prayers ; with their thousands and their mites, their gold 
and tbeif silver, their copper and their zinc, their goods and their labors." 

K woo House was not finished during the Prophet's life, the 
appeal'- in its bekalf failing to secure liberal contributions. It was 
completed in later years, and used as a hotel. 

Smith's residence in Nauvoo was a frame building called the 
Mansion House, not far from the river side. It was opened as a 
hotel on October 3, 1843, with considerable ceremony, one of the 
toasts responded to being as follows, " Resolved, that General 
Joseph Smith, whether we view him as a prophet at the head of 
the church,-a general at the head of the Legion, a mayor at the 
head of the City Council, or a landlord at the head of the table, has 
few equals and no superiors." 

Another church building was the Hall of the Seventies, the 
upper story of which was used for the priesthood and the Council 

1 Gregg's " History of Hancock County," p. 374. 

2 Times and Seasons^ Vol. II, p. 369. 

R 



242 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



of Fifty. Galland's suggestion about a college received practical 
shape in the incorporation of a university, in whose board of 
regents the leading men of the church, including Galland himself, 
found places. The faculty consisted of James Keeley, a graduate 
of Trinity College, Dublin, as president ; Orson Pratt as professor of 
mathematics and English literature ; Orson Spencer, a graduate of 
Union College and the Baptist Theological Seminary in New York, 
as professor of languages ; and Sidney Rigdon as professor of 
church history. The tuition fee was $5 per quarter. 



CHAPTER V 



THE MORMONS IN POLITICS —MISSOURI REQUISITIONS FOR 

SMITH 

The Mormons were now equipped in their new home with 
large landed possessions, a capital city that exhibited a phenom- 
enal growth, and a form of local government which made Nauvoo 
a little independency of itself ; their prophet wielding as much au- 
thority and receiving as much submission as ever ; a Temple under 
way which would excel anything that had been designed in Ohio 
or Missouri, and a stream of immigration pouring in which gave 
assurance of continued numerical increase. What were the causes 
of the complete overthrow of this apparent prosperity which so 
speedily followed ? These causes were of a twofold character — 
political and social. The two were interwoven in many ways, but 
we can best trace them separately. 

We have seen that a Democratic organization gave the first 
welcome to the Mormon refugees at Quincy. In the presidential 
campaign of 1836 the vote of Illinois had been : Democratic, 17,275, 
Whig, 14,292 ; that of Hancock County, Democratic, 260, Whig, 340. 
The closeness of this vote explained the welcome that was extended 
to the new-comers. 

It does not appear that Smith had any original party predilec- 
tions. But he was not pleased with questions which President 
Van Buren asked him when he was in Washington (from Novem- 
ber, 1839, to February, 1840) seeking federal aid to secure redress 
from Missouri, and he wrote to the High Council from that city, 
" We do not say the Saints shall not vote for him, but we do say 
boldly (though it need not be published in the streets of Nauvoo, 
neither among the daughters of the Gentiles), that we do not intend 
he shall have our votes." 1 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XVII, p. 452. 
243 



244 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



On his return to Illinois Smith was toadied to by the workers 
of both parties. He candidly told them that he had no faith in 
either ; but the Whigs secured his influence, and, by an intimation 
that there was divine authority for their course, the Mormon vote 
was cast for Harrison, giving him a majority of 752 in Hancock 
County. In order to keep the Democrats in good humor, the 
Mormons scratched the last name on the Whig electoral ticket 
(Abraham Lincoln) 1 and substituted that of a Democrat. This 
demonstration of their political weight made the Mormons an 
object of consideration at the state capital, and was the direct 
cause of the success of the petition which they sent there, signed 
by some thousands of names, asking for a charter for Nauvoo. 
The representatives of both parties were eager to show them favor. 
Bennett, in a letter to the Times and Seasons from Springfield, 
spoke of the readiness of all the members to vote for what the 
Mprmons wanted, adding that " Lincoln had the magnanimity to 
vote for our act, and came forward after the final vote and con- 
gratulated me on its passage." 

In the gubernatorial campaign of 1 841-1842 Smith swung the 
Mormon vote back to the Democrats, giving them a majority of 
more than one thousand in the county. This was done publicly, 
in a letter addressed "To my friends in Illinois," 2 dated December 
20, 1 84 1, in which the prophet, after pointing out that no persons 
at the state capital were more efficient in securing the passage of 
the Nauvoo charter than the heads of the present Democratic 
ticket, made this declaration : — 

" The partisans in this county who expect to divide the friends of humanity 
and equal rights will find themselves mistaken. We care not a fig for Whig 
or Democrat ; they are both alike to us ; but we shall go for our friends, our 
tried friends, and the cause of human liberty which is the cause of God. . . . 
Snyder and Moore are known to be our friends. . . . We will never be justly 
charged with the sin of ingratitude, — they have served us, and we will serve 
them." 

If Smith had been a man possessing any judgment, he would 
have realized that the political course which he was pursuing, 
instead of making friends in either party, would certainly soon 

1 This is mentioned in "Joab's" (Bennett's) letter, Times and Seasons, Vol. II, 
p. 267. 

2 Times and Seasons, Vol. Ill, p. 651. 



THE MORMONS IN POLITICS 



245 



arraign both parties against him and his followers. The Mormons 
announced themselves distinctly to be a church, and they were 
now exhibiting themselves as a religious body already numerically 
strong and increasing in numbers, which stood ready to obey the 
political mandate of one man, or at least of one controlling authority. 
The natural consequence of this soon manifested itself. 

A congressional and a county election were approaching, and a 
mass meeting, made up of both Whigs and Democrats of Hancock 
County, was held to place in the field a non-Mormon county ticket. 
The fusion was not accomplished without heart-burnings on the 
part of some unsuccessful aspirants for nominations. A few of 
these went over to Smith, and the election resulted in the success 
of the state Democratic and the Mormon local ticket, legislative 
and county, Smith's brother William being elected to theJHouse. 
It is easy to realize that this victory did not lessen Smith's aggres- 
sive egotism. 

Some important matters were involved in the next political 
contest, the congressional election of August, 1843. The Whigs 
nominated Cyrus Walker, a lawyer of reputation living in McDon- 
ough County, and the Democrats J. P. Hoge, also a lawyer, but a 
weaker candidate at the polls. Every one conceded that Smith's 
dictum would decide the contest. 

On May 6, 1842, Governor Boggs of Missouri, while sitting 
near a window in his house in Independence, was fired at, and 
wounded so severely that his recovery was for some days in doubt. 
The crime was naturally charged to his Mormon enemies, 1 and 
was finally narrowed down to O. P. Rockwell, 2 a Mormon living 

1 The hatred felt toward Governor Boggs by the Mormon leaders was not concealed. 
Thus, an editorial in the Times and Seasons of January i, 1841, headed " Lilburn W. 
Boggs," began, "The thing whose name stands at the head of this article," etc. Re- 
ferring to the ending of his term of office, the article said, " Lilburn has gone down to 
the dark and dreary abode of his brother and prototype, Nero, there to associate with 
kindred spirits and partake of the dainties of his father's, the devil's, table." 

Bennett afterward stated that he heard Joseph Smith say, on July 10, 1842, that 
Governor Boggs, " the exterminator, should be exterminated," and that the Destroying 
Angels (Danites) should do it; also that in the spring of that year he heard Smith, at a 
meeting of Danites, offer to pay any man $500 who would secretly assassinate the gov- 
ernor. Bennett's statement is only cited for what it may be worth; that some Mormon 
fired the shot is within the limit of strict probability. 

2 Rockwell, who, in his latter days, was employed by General Connor to guard stock 
in California, told the general that he fired the shot at Governor Boggs, and was sorry it 
did not kill him. — " Mormon Portraits," p. 255. 



246 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



in Nauvoo, as the agent, and Joseph Smith, Jr., as the instigator. 
Indictments were found against both of them in Missouri, and a 
requisition for Smith's surrender was made by the governor of 
that state on the governor of Illinois. Smith was arrested under 
the governor's warrant. Now came an illustration of the value to 
him of the form of government provided by the Nauvoo charter. 
Taken before his own municipal court, he was released at once 
on a writ of habeas corpus. This assumption of power by a local 
court aroused the indignation of non-Mormons throughout the 
state. Governor Carlin characterized it somewhat later, in a 
letter to Smith's wife, as " most absurd and ridiculous ; to attempt 
to exercise it is a gross usurpation of power that cannot be 
tolerated." 1 

Notwithstanding his release, Smith thought it best to remain 
in hiding for some time to escape another arrest, for which the 
governor ordered a reward of $200. About the middle of August 
his associates in Nauvoo concluded that the outlook for him was 
so bad, notwithstanding the protection which his city court was 
ready to afford, that it might be best for him to flee to the pine 
woods of the North country. Smith incorporates in his autobiog- 
raphy a long letter which he wrote to his wife at this time, 2 giving 
her directions about this flight if it should become necessary. 
Their goods were to be loaded on a boat manned by twenty of 
the best men who could be selected, and who would meet them 
at Prairie du Chien : " And from thence we will wend our way 
like larks up the Mississippi, until the towering mountains and 
rocks shall remind us of the places of our nativity, and shall look 
like safety and home ; and there we will bid defiance to Carlin, 
Boggs, Bennett, and all their whorish whores and motley clan, 
that follow in their wake, Missouri not excepted, and until the 
damnation of Hell rolls upon them by the voice and dread 
thunders and trump of the eternal God." ^ 

In October Rigdon obtained from Justin Butterfield, United 
States attorney for Illinois, an opinion that Smith could not be 
held on a Missouri requisition for a crime committed in that state 
when he was in Illinois. In December, 1842, Smith was placed 
under arrest and taken before the United States District Court at 
Springfield, Illinois, under a writ of habeas corpus issued by 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 23. 2 Ibid., pp. 693-695. 



THE MORMONS IN POLITICS 



247 



Judge Roger B. Taney of the State Supreme Court. Butterfield, 
as his counsel, secured his discharge by Judge Pope (a Whig) who 
held that Smith was not a fugitive from Missouri. 

While these proceedings were pending, the Nauvoo City 
Council (Smith was then mayor), passed two ordinances in re- 
gard to the habeas corpus powers of the Municipal Court, one 
giving that court jurisdiction in any case where a person " shall 
be or stand committed or detained for any criminal, or supposed 
criminal, matter." 1 This was intended to make Smith secure 
from the clutches of any Missouri officer so long as he was in his 
own city. 

But Smith's enemy, General Bennett (who before this date 
had been cast out of the fold), was now very active, and through 
his efforts another indictment against Smith on the old charges 
of treason, murder, etc., was found in Missouri, in June, 1843, 
and under it another demand was made on the governor of 
Illinois for Smith's extradition. Governor Ford, a Democrat, 
who had succeeded Carlin, issued a warrant on June 17, 1843, 
and it was served on Smith while he was visiting his wife's sister 
in Lee County, Illinois. An attempt to start with him at once 
for Missouri was prevented by his Mormon friends, who rallied 
in considerable numbers to his aid. Smith secured counsel, who 
began proceedings against the Missouri agent and obtained a 
writ in Smith's behalf returnable, the account in the Times and 
Seasons says, before the nearest competent tribunal, which "it 
was ascertained was at Nauvoo " — Smith's own Municipal Court 
The prophet had a sort of triumphal entry into Nauvoo, and the 
question of the jurisdiction of the Municipal Court in his case 
came up at once. Both of the candidates for Congress, Walker 
(who was employed as his counsel) and Hoge, gave opinions in 
favor of such jurisdiction, and, after a three hours' plea by Walker, 
the court ordered Smith's release. Smith addressed the people 
of Nauvoo in the grove after his return. From the report of his 
remarks in the Journal of Discourses (Vol. II, p. 163) the follow- 
ing is taken : — 

" Before I will bear this unhallowed persecution any longer, before I will be 
dragged away again among my enemies for trial, I will spill the last drop of 



1 For text of these ordinances, see Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 165. 



248 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



blood in my veins, and will see all my enemies in hell. . . . Deny me the writ 
of habeas corpus, and I will fight with gun, sword, cannon, whirlwind, thunder, 
until they are used up like the Kilkenny cats. ... If these [charter] powers are 
dangerous, then the constitutions of the United States and of this state are dan- 
gerous. If the Legislature has granted Nauvoo the right of determining cases of 
habeas corpus, it is no more than they ought to have done, or more than our 
fathers fought for. 1 ' 

Smith expressed his gratitude to Walker for what the latter had 
accomplished in his behalf, and the Whig candidate now had no 
doubt that the Mormon vote was his. 

But the Missouri agent, indignant that a governor's writ should 
be set aside by a city court, hurried to Springfield and demanded 
that Governor Ford should call out enough state militia to secure 
Smith's arrest and delivery at the Missouri boundary. The gov- 
ernor, who was not a man of the firmest purpose, had no intention 
of being mixed up in the pending congressional fight and struggle 
for the Mormon vote ; so he asked for delay and finally decided 
not to call out any troops. 

The Hancock County Democrats were quick to see an oppor- 
tunity in this situation, and they sent to Springfield a man named 
Backenstos (who took an active part in the violent scenes con- 
nected with the subsequent history of the Mormons in the state) 
to ascertain for the Mormons just what the governor's intentions 
were. Backenstos reported that the prophet need have no fear of 
the Democratic governor so long as the Mormons voted the Demo- 
cratic ticket. 1 

When this news was brought back to Nauvoo, a few days 
before the election, a mass meeting of the Mormons was called, 
and Hyrum Smith (then Patriarch, succeeding the prophet's father, 
who was dead) announced the receipt of a "revelation" directing 
the Mormons to vote for Hoge. William Law, an influential busi- 
ness man in the Mormon circle, immediately denied the existence 
of any such " revelation." The prophet alone could decide the 
matter. He was brought in and made a statement to the effect 
that he himself proposed to vote for Walker ; that he considered 
it a "mean business" to influence any man's vote by dictation, 
and that he had no great faith in revelations about elections ; " but 

1 Governor Ford, in his " History of Illinois," says that such a pledge was given by 
a prominent Democrat, but without his own knowledge. 



THE MORMONS IN POLITICS 



249 



brother Hyrum was a man of truth ; he had known brother Hyrum 
intimately ever since he was a boy, and he had never known him 
to tell a lie. If brother Hyrum said he had received such a reve- 
lation, he had no doubt it was a fact. When the Lord speaks, let 
all the earth be silent." 1 

The election resulted in the choice of Hoge by a majority of 
455! 

1 Ford's " History of Illinois," p. 318. 



CHAPTER VI 



SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 

STATES 

Smith's latest triumph over his Missouri enemies, with the feel- 
ing that he had the governor of his state back of him, increased 
his own and his followers' audacity. The Nauvoo Council con- 
tinued to pass ordinances to protect its inhabitants from outside 
legal processes, civil and criminal. One of these provided that no 
writ issued outside of Nauvoo for the arrest of a person in that 
city should be executed until it had received the mayor's approval, 
any one violating this ordinance to be liable to imprisonment for 
life, with no power of pardon in the governor without the mayor's 
consent ! The acquittal of O. P. Rockwell on the charge of the 
attempted assassination of Governor Boggs caused great delight 
among the Mormons, and their organ declared on January I, 1844, 
that " throughout the whole region of country around us those 
bitter and acrimonious feelings, which have so long been engen- 
dered by many, are dying away." 

Smith's political ideas now began to broaden. " Who shall be 
our next President ? " was the title of an editorial in the Times and 
Seasons of October 1, 1843, which urged the selection of a man 
who would be most likely to give the Mormons help in securing 
redress for their grievances. 

The next month Smith addressed a letter to Henry Clay and 
John C. Calhoun, who were the leading candidates for the presi- 
dential nomination, citing the Mormons' losses and sufferings in 
Missouri, and their failure to obtain redress in the courts or from 
Congress, and asking, " What will be your rule of action relative 
to us as a people should fortune favor your ascendancy to the 
chief magistracy ? " Clay replied that, if nominated, he could 
" enter into no engagements, make no promises, give no pledges 
to any particular portion of the people of the United States," 
adding, " If I ever enter into that high office, I must go into it 

250 



SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT 



251 



free and unfettered, with no guarantees but such as are to be 
drawn from my whole life, character and conduct." He closed 
with an expression of sympathy with the Mormons " in their suf- 
ferings under injustice." Calhoun replied that, if elected Presi- 
dent, he would try to administer the government according to the 
constitution and the laws, and that, as these made no distinction 
between citizens of different religious creeds, he should make none. 
He repeated an opinion which he had given Smith in Washington 
that the Mormon case against the state of Missouri did not come 
within the jurisdiction of the federal government. 

These replies excited Smith to wrath and he answered them at 
length, and in language characteristic of himself. A single quota- 
tion from his letter to Clay (dated May 13, 1844) will suffice : — 

" In your answer to my question, last fall, that peculiar trait of the modern 
politician, declaring ' if you ever enter into that high office, you must go into it 
unfettered, with no guarantees but such as are to be drawn from your whole life, 
character and conduct, 1 so much resembles a lottery vender's sign, with the god- 
dess of good luck sitting on the car of fortune, astraddle of the horn of plenty, 
and driving the merry steeds of beatitude, without reins or bridle, that I cannot 
help exclaiming, 1 O, frail man, what have you done that will exalt you ? Can 
anything be drawn from your life, character or co?iduct that is worthy of being 
held up to the gaze of this nation as a model of vi?'tue, character and wisdom f 
. . . Your 'whole life, character and conduct 1 have been spotted with deeds that 
causes a blush upon the face of a virtuous patriot ; so you must be contented 
with your lot, while crime, cowardice, cupidity or low cunning have handed you 
down from the high tower of a statesman to the black hole of a gambler. . . . 
Crape the heavens with weeds of woe ; gird the earth with sackcloth, and let hell 
mutter one melody in commemoration of fallen splendor ! For the glory of 
America has departed, and God will set a flaming sword to guard the . tree of 
liberty, while such mint-tithing Herods as Van Buren, Boggs, Benton, Calhoun, 
and Clay are thrust out of the realms of virtue as fit subjects for the kingdom of 
fallen greatness — vox reprobi, vox Diaboli." 

Calhoun was admonished to read the eighth section of article 
one of the federal constitution, after which " God, who cooled the 
heat of a Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, or shut the mouths of lions 
for the honor of a Daniel, will raise your mind above the narrow 
notion that the general government has no power, to the sublime 
idea that Congress, with the President as executor, is as almighty 
in its sphere as Jehovah is in his." 1 

1 For this correspondence in full, see Times and Seasons, January I and June I, 
1844, or Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 143. 



252 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Smith's next step was to have Judge Phelps read to a public 
meeting in Nauvoo on February 7, 1844, a very long address by 
the prophet, setting forth his views on national politics. 1 He 
declared that "no honest man can doubt for a moment but the 
glory of American liberty is on the wane, and that calamity and 
confusion will sooner or later destroy the peace of the people," 
while " the motto hangs on the nation's escutcheon, 1 every man 
has his price.' " 

Smith proposed an abundance of remedies for these evils : 
Reduce the members of Congress at least one-half; pay them $2 
a day and board ; petition the legislature to pardon every convict, 
and make the punishment for any felony working on the roads or 
some other place where the culprit can be taught wisdom and 
virtue, murder alone to be cause for confinement or death ; petition 
for the abolition of slavery by the year 1850, the slaves to be paid 
for out of the surplus from the sale of public lands, and the money 
saved by reducing the pay of Congress ; establish a national bank, 
with branches in every state and territory, " whose officers shall 
be elected yearly by the people, with wages of $2 a day for ser- 
vices," the currency to be limited to "the amount of capital stock 
in her vaults, and interest " ; " and the bills shall be par throughout 
the nation, which will mercifully cure that fatal disorder known in 
cities as brokery, and leave the people's money in their own pock- 
ets " ; give the President full power to send an army to suppress 
mobs ; " send every lawyer, as soon as he repents and obeys the 
ordinances of heaven, to preach the Gospel to the destitute, without 
purse or scrip " ; " spread the federal jurisdiction to the west sea, 
when the red men give their consent " ; and give the right hand 
of fellowship to Texas, Canada, and Mexico. He closed with this 
declaration : "I would, as the universal friend of man, open the 
prisons, open the eyes, open the ears, and open the hearts of all 
people to behold and enjoy freedom, unadulterated freedom; and 
God, who once cleansed the violence of the earth with a flood, 
whose Son laid down his life for the salvation of all his father 
gave him out of the world, and who has promised that he will come 
and purify the world again with fire in the last days, should be 
supplicated by me for the good of all people. With the highest 
esteem, I am a friend of virtue and of the people." 

1 For its text, see Times and Seasons, May 15, 1844, or Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 133. 



SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT 253 



It seems almost incomprehensible that the promulgator of 
such political views should have taken himself seriously. But 
Smith was in deadly earnest, and not only was he satisfied of his 
political power, but, in the church conference of 1844, he declared, 
" I feel that I am in more immediate communication with God, 
and on a better footing with Him, than I have ever been in 
my life." 

The announcement of Smith's political " principles " was fol- 
lowed immediately by an article in the Times and Seasons, which 
answered the question, "Whom shall the Mormons support for 
President?" with the reply, "General Joseph Smith. A man of 
sterling worth and integrity, and of enlarged views ; a man who 
has raised himself from the humblest walks in life to stand at the 
head of a large, intelligent, respectable, and increasing society ; . . . 
and whose experience has rendered him every way adequate to 
the onerous duty." The formal announcement that Smith was 
the Mormon candidate was made in the Times and Seasons of 
February 15, 1844, an< 3 the ticket — 

FOR PRESIDENT, 
GENERAL JOSEPH SMITH, 
Nauvoo, Illinois. 

was kept at the head of its editorial page from March 1, until his 
death. 

A weekly newspaper called the Wasp, issued at Nauvoo under 
Mormon editorship, had been succeeded by a larger one called 
the Neighbor, edited by John Taylor (afterward President of the 
church), who also had charge of the Times and Seasons. The 
Neighbor likewise placed Smith's name, as the presidential candi- 
date, at the head of its columns, and on March 6 completed its 
ticket with "General James A. Bennett of New York, for Vice- 
President." 1 Three weeks later Bennett's name was taken down, 
and on June 19, Sidney Rigdon's was substituted for it. There 
was nothing modest in the Mormon political ambition. 

1 This General Bennett was not the first mayor of Nauvoo, as some writers like 
Smucker have supposed, but a lawyer who gave his address as " Arlington House," on 
Long Island, New York, and who in 1843 na d offered himself to Smith as " a most unde- 
viating friend," etc. 



254 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Proof of Smith's serious view of his candidacy is furnished in 
his next step, which was to send out a large body of missionaries 
(two or three thousand, according to Governor Ford) to work up 
his campaign in the Eastern and Southern states. These emissaries 
were selected from among the ablest of Smith's allies, including 
Brigham Young, Lorenzo Snow, and John D. Lee. Their absence 
from Nauvoo was a great misfortune to Smith at the time of his 
subsequent arrest and imprisonment at Carthage. 

The campaigners began work at once. Lorenzo Snow, to 
whom the state of Ohio was allotted, went to Kirtland, where he 
had several thousand pamphlets printed, setting forth the prophet's 
views and plans, and he then travelled around in a buggy, distrib- 
uting the pamphlets and making addresses in Smith's behalf. 
"To many persons," he confesses, "who knew nothing of Joseph 
but through the ludicrous reports in circulation, the movement 
seemed a species of insanity." 1 John D. Lee was a most devout 
Mormon, but his judgment revolted against this movement. " I 
would a thousand times rather have been shut up in jail," he says. 
He began his canvassing while on the boat bound for St. Louis. 
" I told them," he relates, " the prophet would lead both candi- 
dates. There was a large crowd on the boat, and an election was 
proposed. The prophet received a majority of 75 out of 125 
votes polled. This created a tremendous laugh." 2 

We have an account of one state convention called to consider 
Smith's candidacy, and this was held in the Melodeon in Boston, 
Massachusetts, on July 1, 1844, the news of Smith's death not yet 
having reached that city. A party of young rowdies practically 
took possession of the hall as soon as the business of the conven- 
tion began, and so disturbed the proceedings that the police were 
sent for, and they were able to clear the galleries only after a 
determined fight. The convention then adjourned to Bunker 
Hill, but nothing further is heard of its proceedings. The press 
of the city condemned the action of the disturbers as a disgrace. 
Mention is made in the Times and Seasons of July 1, 1844, of 
a conference of elders held in Dresden, Tennessee, on the 25th 
of May previous, at which Smith's name was presented as a 
presidential candidate. The meeting was broken up by a mob, 

1 " Biography of Lorenzo Snow." 

2 " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 149. 



SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT 



255 



which the sheriff confessed himself powerless to overcome, but it 
met later and voted to print three thousand copies of Smith's 
views. 

The prophet's death, which occurred so soon after the announce- 
ment of his candidacy, rendered it impossible to learn how serious 
a cause of political disturbance that candidacy might have been in 
neighborhoods where the Mormons had a following. 



CHAPTER VII 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN NAUVOO 

Having followed Smith's political operations to their close, it 
is now necessary to retrace our steps, and examine the social con- 
ditions which prevailed in and around Nauvoo during the years of 
his reign — conditions which had quite as much to do in causing 
the expulsion of the Mormons from the state as did his political 
mistakes. 

It must be remembered that Nauvoo was a pioneer town, on 
the borders of a thinly settled country. Its population and that of 
its suburbs consisted of the refugees from Missouri, of whose 
character we have had proof; of the converts brought in from 
the Eastern states and from Europe, not a very intelligent body ; 
and of those pioneer settlers, without sympathy with the Mormon 
beliefs, who were attracted to the place from various motives. 
While active work was continued by the missionaries throughout 
the United States, their labors in this country seem to have been 
more efficient in establishing local congregations than in secur- 
ing large additions to the population of Nauvoo, although some 
" branches " moved bodily to the Mormon centre. 1 

Of the class of people reached by the early missionaries in 
England we have this description, in a letter from Orson Hyde to 
his wife, dated September 14, 1837: — 

" Those who have been baptized are mostly manufacturers and some other 
mechanics. They know how to do but little else than to spin and weave cloth, 
and make cambric, mull and lace ; and what they would do in Kirtland or the 
city of Far West, I cannot say. They are extremely poor, most of them not 
having a change of clothes decent to be baptized in." 2 

In a letter of instructions from Smith to the travelling elders 
in Great Britain, dated October, 1840, he warned them that the 

1 Lee's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 135. 

2 Elders^ Journal, Vol. I, No. 2. 

256 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN XAUVOO 



25/ 



gathering of the Saints must be " attended to in the order that the 
Lord intends it should " ; and he explains that, as " great numbers 
of the Saints in England are extremely poor, ... to prevent con- 
fusion and disappointment when they arrive here, let those men 
who are accustomed to making machinery, and those who can 
command a capital, though it be small, come here as soon as con- 
venient and put up machinery, and make such other preparations 
as may be necessary, so that when the poor come on they may 
have employment to come to." 

The invitation to all converts having means was so urgent that 
it took the form of a command. A letter to the Saints abroad, 
signed by Joseph and Hyrum Smith, dated January 15, 1841, 
directed those " blessed of heaven with the possession of this 
world's goods " to sell out as soon as possible and move to Nau- 
voo, adding in italics : " This is agreeable to the order of heaven, 
and the only principal (sic) on which the gathering can be 
effected." 1 

We have seen how hard pressed Smith was for money with 
which to meet his obligations for the payment of land purchased. 
It was not necessary that a new-comer should be a Mormon in 
order to buy a lot, special emphasis being laid on the freedom of 
religious opinion in the city ; but it was early made known that 
purchasers were expected to buy their lots of the church, and not 
of private speculators. The determination with which this rule 

1 The following is a quotation from a letter written by an American living near 
Xauvoo, dated October 20, 1842, printed in the postscript to Caswall's "The City of the 
Mormons '' : — 

" If an English Mormon arrives, the first effort of Joe is to get his money. This in 
most cases is easily accomplished, under a pledge that he can have it at any time on 
giving ten days" notice. The man after some time calls for his money; he is treated 
kindly, and told that it is not convenient to pay. He calles a second time; the Prophet 
cannot pay. but offers a town lot in Xauvoo for Siooo (which cost perhaps as many cents), 
or land on the " half-breed tract ' at Sio or Si 5 per acre. . . . Finally some of the irre- 
sponsible Bishops or Elders execute a deed for land to which they have no valid title, and 
the poor fellow dares not complain. This is the history of hundreds of cases. . . . The 
history of even - dupe reaches Xauvoo in advance. When an Elder abroad wins one over 
to the faith, he makes himself perfectly acquainted with all his family arrangements, his 
standing in society, his ability, and (what is of most importance) the amount of ready 
money and other property which he will take to Xauvoo. . . . They make no converts 
in Xauvoo, and it appears to me that they would never make another if all could witness 
their conduct at Xauvoo for one month. ... In regard to this communication, I pre- 
fer, on account of my own safety, that you should not make known the author publicly. 
You cannot appreciate these fears [in England]. You have no idea what it is to be 
surrounded by a community of Mormons, guided by a leader the most unprincipled. " 



258 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



was enforced, as well as its unpopularity in some quarters, may be 
seen in the following extract from Smith's autobiography, under 
date of February 13, 1843: "I spent the evening at Elder O. 
Hyde's. In the course of conversation I remarked that those 
brethren who came here having money, and purchased without 
the church and without counsel, must be cut off. This, with other 
observations, aroused the feelings of Brother Dixon, from Salem, 
Mass., and he appeared in great wrath." 

The Nauvoo Neighbor of December 27, 1843, contained an ad- 
vertisement signed by the clerk of the church, calling the atten- 
tion of immigrants to the church lands, and saying, " Let all the 
brethren, therefore, when they move into Nauvoo, consult Presi- 
dent Joseph Smith, the trustee in trust, and purchase their land 
from him, and I am bold to say that God will bless them, and 
[they] will hereafter be glad they did so." 

A good many immigrants of more or less means took warning 
as soon as they discovered the conditions prevailing there, and 
returned home. A letter on this subject from the officers of the 
church said : — 

" We have seen so many who have been disappointed and discouraged when 
they visited this place, that we would have imagined they had never been in- 
structed in the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, and thought that, instead 
of coming into a society of men and women, subject to all the frailties of mortal- 
ity, they were about to enjoy the society of the spirits of just men made perfect, 
the holy angels, and that this place should be as pure as the third heaven. But 
when they found that this people were but flesh and blood . . . they have been 
desirous to choose them a captain to lead them back." 

The additions to the Mormon population from the settlers 
whom they found in the outlying country in Illinois and Iowa were 
not likely to be of a desirable class. The banks of the Mississippi 
River had long been hiding-places for pirate bands, whose exploits 
were notorious, and the " half-breed tract " was a known place of 
refuge for the horse thief, the counterfeiter, and the desperado of 
any calling. The settlement of the Mormons in such a region, 
with an invitation to the world at large to join them and be saved, 
was a piece of good luck for this lawless class, who found a cover- 
ing cloak in the new baptism, and a shield in the fidelity with which 
the Mormon authorities, under their charter, defended their flock. 
In this way Nauvoo became a great receptacle for stolen goods, 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN NAUVOO 



259 



and the river banks up and down the stream concealed many more, 
the takers of which walked boldly through the streets of the Mor- 
mon city. The retaliatory measures which Smith encouraged his 
followers to practise on their neighbors in Missouri had inculcated 
a disregard for the property rights of non-Mormons, which became 
an inciting cause of hostilities with their neighbors in Illinois. 

The complaints of thefts by Mormons became so frequent that 
the church authorities deemed it necessary to recognize and rebuke 
the practice. Lee quotes from an address by Smith at the confer- 
ence of April, 1840, in Nauvoo, in which the prophet said: "We 
are no longer at war, and you must stop stealing. When the right 
time comes, we will go in force and take the whole state of Mis- 
souri. It belongs to us as our inheritance ; but I want no more 
petty stealing. A man that will steal petty articles from his ene- 
mies will, when occasion offers, steal from his brethren too. Now 
I command you that have stolen must steal no more." 1 

The case of Elder O. Walker bears on this subject. On Octo- 
ber 11, 1840, he was brought before a High Council and accused 
of discourtesy to the prophet, and " suggesting (at different places) 
that in the church at Nauvoo there did exist a set of pilferers who 
were actually thieving, robbing and plundering, taking and unlaw- 
fully carrying away from Missouri certain goods and chattels, 
wares and property ; and that the act and acts of such supposed 
thieving, etc., was fostered and conducted by the knowledge and 
approval of the heads and leaders of the church, viz., by the Presi- 
dency and High Council." 2 

The action of the church authorities themselves shows how seri- 
ous they considered the reports about thieving. As early as De- 
cember 1, 1 841, Hyrum Smith, then one of the First Presidency, 
published in the Times and Seasons an affidavit denying that the 
heads of the church " sanction and approbate the members of said 
church in stealing property from those persons who do not belong 
to said church," etc. This was followed by a long denial of a 
similar character, signed by the Twelve, and later by an affidavit 
by the prophet himself, denying that he ever " directly or indi- 
rectly encouraged the purloining of property, or taught the doc- 
trine of stealing." On March 25, 1843, Smith, as mayor, issued 

1 Lee's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. ill. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 185. 



260 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



a proclamation beginning with the declaration, " I have not altered 
my views on the subject of stealing," reciting rumors of a secret 
band of desperadoes bound by oath to self -protection, and pledg- 
ing pardon to any one who would give him any information about 
" such abominable characters." This exhibition of the heads of 
a church solemnly protesting that they were opposed to thieving is 
unique in religious history. 

The Patriarch, Hyrum Smith, made an announcement to the 
conference of 1843, which further confirms the charges of organ- 
ized thieving made by the non-Mormons. While denouncing the 
thieves as hypocrites, he said he had learned of the existence of a 
band held together by secret oaths and penalties, "who hold it 
right to steal from any one who does not belong to the church, 
provided they consecrate one-third of it to the building of the Tem- 
ple. They are also making bogus money. . <. . The man who 
told me this said, ' This secret band referred to the Bible, Book 
of Doctrine and Covenants, and Book of Mormon to substantiate 
their doctrines ; and if any of them did not remain steadfast, they 
ripped open their bowels and gave them to the cat fish.' " He 
named two men, inmates of his own house, who, he had discovered, 
were such thieves. The prophet followed this statement with some 
remarks, declaring, "Thieving must be stopped." 1 

The Rev. Henry Caswall, in a description of a Sunday service 
in Nauvoo in April, 1842 (" City of the Mormons," p. 15) says: 
" The elder who had delivered the first discourse now rose and 
said a certain brother whom he named had taken a keg of white 
lead. ' Now,' said he, ' if any of the brethren present has taken 
it by mistake, thinking it was his own, he ought to restore it ; but 
if any of the brethren present have stolen a keg, much more ought 
he to restore it, or else maybe he will get catched.' . . . Another 
person rose and stated that he had lost a ten dollar bill. If any of 
the brethren had found it or taken it, he hoped it would be re- 
stored." This introduction of calls for the restoration of stolen 
property as a feature of a Sunday church service is probably unique 
with the Mormons. 

That the Mormons did not do all the thieving in the counties 
around Nauvoo while they were there would be sufficiently proved 
by the character of many of the persons whom they found there 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XX, pp. 757-758. 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN NAUVOO 



261 



on their arrival, and also by the fact that their expulsion did not 
make those counties a paradise. 1 The trouble with them was that, 
as soon as a man joined them, no matter what his previous char- 
acter might have been, they gave him that protection which came 
with their system of "standing together." An early and signifi- 
cant proof of this protection is found in the action of the confer- 
ence held in Nauvoo on October 3, 1840, two months before the 
charter had given the city government its extended powers, which 
voted that " no person be considered guilty of crime unless proved 
by the testimony of two or three witnesses." 2 

It became notorious in all the country round that it was practi- 
cally useless for a non-Mormon to attempt the recovery of stolen 
property in Nauvoo, no matter how strong the proof in his posses- 
sion might be. S. J. Clarke 3 says that a great deal of stolen stock 
was traced into Nauvoo, but that, " when found, it was extremely 
difficult to gain possession of it." He cites as an illustration the 
case of a resident of that county who traced a stolen horse into 
Nauvoo, and took with him sixty witnesses to identify the animal 
before a Mormon justice of the peace. He found himself, how- 
ever, confronted with seventy witnesses who swore that the horse 
belonged to some Mormon, and the justice decided that the " weight 
of evidence," numerically calculated, was against the non-Mormon. 

A form of protection against outside inquirers for property, 
which is well authenticated, was given by what were known as 
" whittlers." When a non-Mormon came into the city, and by his 
questions let it be known that he was looking for something stolen, 
he would soon find himself approached by a Mormon who carried 
a long knife and a stick, and who would follow him, silently whit- 
tling. Soon a companion would join this whittler, and then another, 
until the stranger would find himself fairly surrounded by these 
armed but silent observers. Unless he was a man of more than 
ordinary grit, an hour or more of this companionship would con- 
vince him that it would be well for him to start for home. 4 

1 " Long afterward, while the writer was travelling through Hancock, Pike and 
Adams Counties, no family thought of retiring at night without barring and double- 
locking every ingress." — Beadle, " Life in Utah," p. 65. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 153. 

8 " History of McDonough County," p. 83. 
* Lee's " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 168. 



CHAPTER VIII 



SMITH'S PICTURE OF HIMSELF AS AUTOCRAT 

Smith's autobiography gives incidentally many interesting 
glimpses of the prophet as he exercised his authority of dictator 
during the height of his power at Nauvoo. It is fortunate for the 
impartial student that these records are at his disposal, because 
many of the statements, if made on any other authority, would 
be met by the customary Mormon denials, and be considered 
generally incredible. 

That Smith's life, aside from the constant danger of extradition 
which the Missouri authorities held over him, was not an easy one 
at this time may readily be imagined. He had his position to 
maintain as sole oracle of the church. He was also mayor, judge, 
councillor, and lieutenant general. There were individual jeal- 
ousies to be disposed of among his associates, rivalries of different 
parts of the city over wished-for improvements to be considered, 
demands of the sellers of church lands for payment to be met, and 
the claims of politicians to be attended to. But Smith rarely 
showed any indication of compromise, apparently convinced that 
his position at all points was now more secure than it had ever 
been. 

The big building enterprises in which the church was engaged 
were a heavy tax on the people, and constant urging was necessary 
to keep them up to the requirements. Thus we find an advertise- 
ment in the Wasp dated June 25, 1842, and signed by the " Temple 
Recorder," saying, " Brethren, remember that your contracts with 
your God are sacred ; the labor is wanted immediately." Smith 
referred to the discontent of the laborers, and to some other mat- 
ters, in a sermon on February 21, 1843. The following quotations 
are from his own report of it. " If any man [working on the Nau- 
voo House] is hungry, let him come to me and I will feed him at 

262 



SMITH'S PICTURE OF HIMSELF AS AUTOCRAT 263 

my table . . . and then if the man is not satisfied I will kick his 
backside. . . . This meeting was got up by the Nauvoo House 
committee. The Pagans, Roman Catholics, Methodists and Bap- 
tists shall have place in Nauvoo — only they must be ground in 
Joe Smith's mill. I have been in their mill . . . and those who 
come here must go through my smut machine, and that is my 
tongue." 1 The difficulty of carrying on these building enterprises 
at this time was increased by the financial disturbance that was 
convulsing the whole country. It was in these years that Congress 
was wrestling with the questions of the deposits of the public funds, 
the United States Bank, the subtreasury scheme, and the falling 
off of customs and land-sale revenues, with a threatened deficit in 
the federal treasury. The break-down of the Bank of the United 
States caused a general failure of the banks of the Western and 
Southern states, and money was so scarce at Nauvoo that one 
Mormon writer records the fact that " when corn was brought to 
my door at ten cents a bushel, and sadly needed, the money could 
not be raised." 

The relations between Smith and Rigdon had been strained 
ever since the departure of the Mormons from Missouri. The 
trouble between them was finally brought before a special confer- 
ence at Nauvoo, on October 7, 1843, at which Smith stated that he 
had received no material benefits from Rigdon's labors or counsel 
since they had left Missouri. He presented complaints against 
Rigdon's management of the post-office, brought up a charge that 
Rigdon had been in correspondence with General Bennett and 
Governor Carlin, and offered " indirect testimony " that Rigdon had 
given the Missourians information of Smith's whereabouts at the 
time of his last arrest. Rigdon met these accusations, some with 
denials and some with explanations, closing with a pitiful appeal 
to the all-powerful head of the church, whose nod would decide the 
verdict, reciting their long associations and sufferings, and signify- 
ing his willingness to resign his position as councillor to the First 
Presidency, but not concealing the pain and humiliation that such 
a step would cause him. Smith became magnanimous. " He ex- 
pressed entire willingness to have Elder Rigdon retain his station, 
provided he would magnify his office, and walk and conduct him- 
self in all honesty, righteousness and integrity ; but signified his 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 583. 



264 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



lack of confidence in his integrity and steadfastness." 1 This inci- 
dent once more furnishes proof of some great power which Smith 
held over Rigdon that induced the latter to associate with the prophet 
on these terms. 

Smith's creditors finally pressed him so hard that he attempted 
to secure aid from the bankruptcy act. In this he did not succeed, 2 
and he was very bitter in his denunciation of the law because it 
was interpreted against him. It was about this time that Smith, 
replying to reports of his wealth, declared that his assets consisted 
of one old horse, two pet deer, ten turkeys, an old cow, one old 
dog, a wife and child, and a little household furniture. On March 
1, 1843, the Council of the Twelve wrote to the outlying branches 
of the church, calling on them " to bring to our President as many 
loads of wheat, corn, beef, pork, lard, tallow, eggs, poultry, veni- 
son, and everything eatable, at your command," in order that he 
might be relieved of business cares and have time to attend to their 
spiritual interests. It was characteristic of Smith to find him, at 
a conference held the following month, lecturing the Twelve on 
their own idleness, telling them it was not necessary for them 
to be abroad all the time preaching and gathering funds, but 
that they should spend a part of their time at home earning a 
living. 

At this same conference Smith was compelled to go into the 
details of a transaction which showed of how little practical use to 
him were his divining and prophetic powers. A man named Rem- 
ick had come to him the previous summer and succeeded in getting 
from him a loan of $200 by misrepresentation. Afterward Remick 
offered to give him a quit-claim deed for all the land bought of 
Galland, as well as the notes which Smith had given to Galland, 
and one-half of all the land that Remick owned in Illinois and Iowa, 
if Smith would use his influence to build up the city of Keokuk, 
Iowa. Smith actually agreed to this in writing. At the conference 
he had to explain this whole affair. After alleging that Remick 
was a swindler, he said : " I am not so much of a ' Christian ' as 
many suppose I am. When a man undertakes to ride me for a 

1 Times and Seasons, Vol. IV, p. 330. H. C. Kimball stated afterward at Rigdon's 
church trial that Smith did not accept him as an adviser after this, but took Amasa 
Lyman in his place, and that it was Hyrum Smith who induced his brother to show some 
apparent magnanimity. 

2 See chapter on this subject in Bennett's " History of the Saints." 



SMITH'S PICTURE OF HIMSELF AS AUTOCRAT 265 



horse I feel disposed to kick up, and throw him off and ride him. 
David did so, and so did Joshua." 1 

The old Kirtland business troubles came up to annoy Smith 
from time to time, but he always found a way to meet them. While 
his writ of habeas corpus was under argument out of the city in 1841, 
a man presented to him a five-dollar bill of the Kirtland Bank, and 
threatened to sue him on it. As the easiest way to dispose of this 
matter, Smith handed the man $5. 

Smith's Ohio experience did not lessen his estimation of him- 
self as an authority on finance. We find him, at the meeting of 
the Nauvoo City Council on February 25, 1843, denouncing the 
state law of Illinois making property a legal tender for the pay- 
ment of debts ; asserting that their city charter gave them authority 
to enact such local currency laws as did not conflict with the fed- 
eral and state constitutions, and continuing : — 

" Shall we be such fools as to be governed by their [Illinois] laws which are 
unconstitutional? No. We will make a law for gold and silver; then their law 
ceases, and we can collect our debts. Powers not delegated to the states, or 
reserved from the states, are constitutional. The constitution acknowledges that 
the people have all power not reserved to itself. I am a lawyer. I am a big 
lawyer, and comprehend heaven, earth and hell, to bring forth knowledge that 
shall cover up ail lawyers, doctors and other big bodies. 1 ' 2 

Smith had his way, as usual, and on March 4, the Council 
passed unanimously an ordinance making gold and silver the only 
legal tender in payment of debts and fines in Nauvoo, and fixing a 
punishment for the circulation of counterfeit money. Perhaps this 
Council never took a broader view of its legislative authority than 
in this instance. 

Smith never laid aside his natural inclination for good fellow- 
ship, nor took himself too seriously while posing as a mouthpiece 
of the Lord. Along with the entries recording his predictions he 
notes such matters as these : " Played ball with the brethren." 
l< Cut wood all day." A visitor at Nauvoo, in 1843, describes him 
as " a jolly fellow, and one of the last persons whom he would 
have supposed God would have raised up as a Prophet." 3 Josiah 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XX, pp. 758-759. 2 Ibid., p. 616. 

3 This same idea is presented by a writer in the Millennial Star, Vol. XVII, p. 
820: "When the fact of Smith's divine character shall burst upon the nations, they will 
be struck dumb with wonder and astonishment at the Lord's choice, — the last individ- 
ual in the whole world whom they would have chosen." 



266 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Quincy said that Smith seemed to him to have a keen sense of the 
humorous aspects of his position. "It seems to me, General," 
Quincy said to him, " that you have too much power to be safely 
trusted in one man." " In your hands or that of any other person," 
was his reply, " so much power would no doubt be dangerous. I 
am the only man in the world whom it would be safe to trust with 
it. Remember, I am a prophet." "The last five words," says 
Quincy, "were spoken in a rich comical aside, as if in hearty 
recognition of the ridiculous sound they might have in the ears of 
a Gentile." 1 

Smith makes this entry on February 20, 1843: "While the 
[Municipal] Court was in session, I saw two boys fighting in the 
street. I left the business of the court, ran over immediately, 
caught one of the boys and then the other, and after giving them 
proper instruction, I gave the bystanders a lecture for not interfer- 
ing in such cases. I returned to the court, and told them nobody 
was allowed to fight in Nauvoo but myself." 

In January, 1842, Smith once more became a "storekeeper." 
Writing to an absent brother on January 5, 1842, he described his 
building, with a salesroom fitted up with shelves and drawers, a 
private office, etc. He added that he had a fair stock, " although 
some individuals have succeeded in detaining goods to a consider- 
able amount. I have stood behind the counter all day," he contin- 
ued, " dealing out goods as steadily as any clerk you ever saw." 2 

The following entry is found under date of June 1, 1842: 
" Sent Dr. Richards to Carthage on business. On his return, old 
Charley, while on a gallop, struck his knees and breast instead of 
his feet, fell in the street and rolled over in an instant, and the 
doctor narrowly escaped with his life. It was a trick of the devil 
to kill my clerk. Similar attacks have been made upon myself of 
late, and Satan is seeking our destruction on every hand." 

Smith practically gave up " revealing " during his life in Nau- 
voo. At Rigdon's church trial, after Smith's death, President 
Marks said, " Brother Joseph told us that he, for the future, 
whenever there was a revelation to be presented to the church, 
would first present it to the Quorum, and then, if it passed the 
Quorum, it should be presented to the church." Strong pressure 
must have been exerted upon the prophet to persuade him to 

1 "Figures of the Past," p. 397. 2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, p. 21. 



SMITH'S PICTURE OF HIMSELF AS AUTOCRAT 267 



consent to such a restriction, and it is the only instance of the kind 
that is recorded during his career. But if he did not " reveal," he 
could not be prevented from uttering oral prophecies and giving 
his interpretation of the Scriptures. That he had become pos- 
sessed with the idea of a speedy ending of this world seems alto- 
gether probable. All through his autobiography he notes reports 
of earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, etc., and he gives special em- 
phasis to accounts that reached him of " showers of flesh and 
blood." Under date of February 18, 1843, he notes, "While at 
dinner I remarked to my family and friends present that, when 
the earth was sanctified and became like a sea of glass, it would 
be one great Urim and Thummim, and the Saints could look in it 
and see as they are seen." Another of his wise sayings is thus 
recorded, " The battle of Gog and Magog will be after the 
Millennial." 

In some remarks, on April 2, 1843, Smith made the one predic- 
tion that came true, and one which has always given the greatest 
satisfaction to the Saints. This was : " I prophesy in the name of 
the Lord God that the commencement of the difficulties which will 
cause much bloodshed previous to the coming of the Son of man 
will be in South Carolina. It may probably arise through the 
slave trade." This prediction was afterward amplified so as to 
declare that the war between the Northern and Southern states 
would involve other nations in Europe, and that the slaves would 
rise up against their masters. It would have been better for his 
fame had he left the announcement in its original shape. 

Such is the picture of Smith the prophet as drawn by himself. 
Of the rumors about the Mormons, current in all the counties near 
Nauvoo, which cannot be proved by Mormon testimony there were 
hundreds. 



CHAPTER IX 



SMITH'S FALLING OUT WITH BENNETT AND HIGBEE 

Surprise has been expressed that Smith would permit the new- 
comer, General John C. Bennett, to be elected the first mayor of 
Nauvoo under the new charter. Much less surprising is the fact 
that a falling out soon occurred between them which led to the 
withdrawal of Bennett from the church on May 17, 1842, and 
made for the prophet an enemy who pursued him with a method 
and vindictiveness that he had not before encountered from any 
of those who had withdrawn, or been driven, from the church 
fellowship. 

The exact nature of the dispute between the two men has never 
been explained. That personal jealousy entered into it there is 
little doubt. Smith never had submitted to any real division of 
his supreme authority, and when Bennett entered the fold as politi- 
cal lobbyist, mayor, major general, etc., a clash seemed unavoid- 
able. It was stated, during Rigdon's church trial after Smith's 
death, that Bennett declared, at the first conference he attended at 
Nauvoo, that he sustained the same position in the First Presidency 
that the Holy Ghost does to the Father and the Son ; and that, 
after Smith's death, Bennett visited Nauvoo, and proposed to Rig- 
don that the latter assume Smith's place in the church, and let 
Bennett assume that which had been occupied by Rigdon. 1 

The Mormon explanation given at the time of Bennett's expul- 
sion was that some of their travelling elders in the Eastern states 
discovered that the general had a wife and family there while he 
was paying attention to young ladies in Nauvoo ; but a very slight 
acquaintance with Smith's ideas on the question of morality at that 
time is needed to indicate that this was an afterthought. The 
course of the church authorities showed that they were ready to 

1 Times and Seasons, Vol. V, p. 655. 
268 



SMITH'S FALLING OUT WITH BENNETT AND HIGBEE 269 

make any concession to avoid a public explanation by Bennett. 
Only about three weeks before his withdrawal, Rigdon wrote that 
he was " honorable in his intercourse with his fellows, . . . and 
every way qualified to be a useful citizen." Smith directed the 
clerk of the church to permit Bennett to withdraw " if he desires 
to do so, and this with the best of feelings toward you and General 
Bennett." But as soon as Bennett began his attacks on Smith the 
church made haste to withdraw the hand of fellowship from him, 
and framed a formal writ of excommunication, and Smith could 
not find enough phials of wrath to pour upon him. Thus, in a 
statement published in the Times aitd Seasons of July 1, 1842, he 
called Bennett "an impostor and a base adulterer," brought up 
the story of his having a wife in Ohio, and charged that he taught 
women that it was proper to have promiscuous intercourse with 
men. 

As soon as Bennett left Nauvoo he began the publication of 
a series of letters in the Sangamon (Illinois) Journal, which pur- 
ported to give an inside view of the Mormon designs, and the 
personal character and practices of the church leaders. These 
were widely copied, and seem to have given people in the East 
their first information that Smith was anything worse than a 
religious pretender. Bennett also started East lecturing on the 
same subject, and he published in Boston in the same year a 
little book called " History of the Saints ; or an Expose of Joe 
Smith and Mormonism," containing, besides material which he 
had collected, copious extracts from the books of Howe and 
W. Harris. 

Bennett declared that he had never believed in any of the 
Mormon doctrines, but that, forming the opinion that their leaders 
were planning to set up "a despotic and religious empire" over 
the territory included in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Mis- 
souri, he decided to join them, learn their secrets, and expose 
them. Bennett's personal rascality admits of no doubt, and not 
the least faith need be placed in this explanation of his course, 
which, indeed, is disproved by his later efforts to regain power in 
the church. It does seem remarkable, however, that neither the 
Lord nor his prophet knew anything about Bennett's rascality, and 
that they should select him, among others, for special mention in 
the long revelation of January 19, 1841, wherein the Lord calls 



270 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



him " my servant," and directs him to help Smith " in sending my 
word to the kings of the people of the earth." There is no doubt 
that Bennett obtained an inside view of Smith's moral, political, 
and religious schemes, and that, while his testimony uncorrobo- 
rated might be questioned, much that he wrote was amply con- 
firmed. 

According to Bennett's statements, Mormon society at Nauvoo 
was organized licentiousness. There were " Cyprian Saints," 
" Chartered Sisters of Charity," and " Cloistered Saints," or spirit- 
ual wives, all designed to pander to the passions of church mem- 
bers. Of the system of " spiritual wives " (which was set forth in 
the revelation concerning polygamy), Bennett says in his book : — 

" When an Apostle, High Priest, Elder or Scribe conceives an affection for a 
female, and he has satisfactorily ascertained that she experiences a mutual claim, 
he communicates confidentially to the Prophet his affaire du cceur, and requests 
him to inquire of the Lord whether or not it would be right and proper for him 
to take unto himself the said woman for his spiritual wife. It is no obstacle 
whatever to this spiritual marriage if one or both of the parties should happen to 
have a husband or wife already united to them according to the laws of the land." 

Bennett alleged that Smith forced him, at the point of a 
pistol, to sign an affidavit stating that Smith had no part in the 
practice of the spiritual wife doctrine ; but Bennett's later disclos- 
ures went into minute particulars of alleged attempts of Smith to 
secure "spiritual wives," a charge which the commandments to 
the prophet's wife in the " revelation " on polygamy amply sus- 
tain. A leading illustration cited concerned the wife of Orson 
Pratt. 1 According to the story as told (largely in Mrs. Pratt's 
words), Pratt was sent to England on a mission to get him out of 
the way, and then Smith used every means in his power to secure 
Mrs. Pratt's consent to his plan, but in vain. Nancy Rigdon, the 
eldest unmarried daughter of Sidney Rigdon, was another alleged 
intended victim of the prophet, and Bennett said that Smith 
offered him $500 in cash, or a choice lot, if he would assist in the 
plot. One day, when Smith was alone with her, he pressed his 
request so hard that she threatened to cry for help. The con- 
tinuation of the story is not by General Bennett, but is taken from 

1 Ebenezer Robinson says that when Orson Pratt returned from his mission to 
England, and learned of the teaching of the spiritual wife doctrine, his mind gave way. 
One day he disappeared, and a search party found him five miles below Nauvoo, hatless, 
seated on the bank of the river. — The Return, Vol. II, p. 363. 



SMITH'S FALLING OUT WITH BENNETT AND HIGBEE 271 



a letter to James A. Bennett, he of "Arlington House," dated 
Nauvoo, July 27, 1842, by George W. Robinson, one of Smith's 
fellow-prisoners in Independence jail, and one of the generals of 
the Nauvoo Legion : — 

" She left him with disgust, and came home and told her father of the trans- 
action ; upon which Smith was sent for. He came. She told the tale in the 
presence of all the family, and to Smith's face. I was present. Smith attempted 
to deny at first, and face her down with a lie ; but she told the facts with so 
much earnestness, and the fact of a letter being proved which he had caused to 
be written to her on the same subject, the day after the attempt made on her 
virtue, breathing the same spirit, and which he had fondly hoped was destroyed, 
all came with such force that he could not withstand the testimony ; and he 
then and there acknowledged that every word of Miss Rigdon's testimony was 
true. Now for his excuse. He wished to ascertain if she was virtuous or not ! " 

To offset this damaging attack on Smith, a man named Mark- 
ham was induced to make an affidavit assailing Miss Rigdon's 
character, which was published in the Wasp. But Markham's 
own character was so bad, and the charge caused so much indig- 
nation, that the editor was induced to say that the affidavit was 
not published by the prophet's direction. 

Bennett's charges aroused great interest among the non-Mor- 
mons in all the counties around Nauvoo, and increased the grow- 
ing enmity against Smith's flock which was already aroused by 
their political course and their alleged propensity to steal. 

A minor incident among those leading up to Smith's final 
catastrophe was a quarrel, some time later, between the prophet 
and Francis M. Higbee. This resulted in a suit for libel against 
Smith, tried in May, 1844, in which much testimony disclosing 
the rotten condition of affairs in Nauvoo was given, and in the 
arrest of Smith in a suit for $5000 damages. The hearing, on a 
writ of habeas corpus, in Smith's behalf, is reported in Times and 
Seasons, Vol. V, No. 10. The court (Smith's Municipal Court) 
ordered Smith discharged, and pronounced Higbee's character 
proved "infamous." 



CHAPTER X 



THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY 

The student of the history of the Mormon church to this date, 
who seeks an answer to the question, Who originated the idea of 
^plural marriages among the Mormons ? will naturally credit that 
idea to Joseph Smith, Jr. The Reorganized Church (non-polyga 
mist), whose membership includes Smith's direct descendants, 
defend the prophet's memory by alleging that "in the brain of 
J. C. Bennett was conceived the idea, and in his practice was the 
principle first introduced into the church." In maintaining this 
ground, however, they contend that " the official character of Presi- 
dent Joseph Smith should be judged by his official ministrations as 
set forth in the well-authenticated accepted official documents of 
the church up to June 27, 1844. His personal, private conduct 
should not enter into this discussion." 1 The secular investigator 
finds it necessary to disregard this warning, and in studying the 
question he discovers an incontrovertible mass of testimony to 
prove that the " revelation " concerning polygamy was a produc- 
tion of Smith, 2 was familiar to the church leaders in Nauvoo, and 
was lived up to by them before their expulsion from Illinois. 

The Book of Mormon furnishes ample proof that the idea of 
plural marriages was as far from any thought of the real "author" 
of the doctrinal part of that book as it was from the mind of Rig- 
don's fellow-Disciples in Ohio at the time. The declarations on 
the subject in the Mormon Bible are so worded that they distinctly 
forbid any following of the example of Old Testament leaders 

1 Pamphlets Nos. 1 6 and 46 published by the Reorganized Church. 

2 "Elder W. W. Phelps said in Salt Lake Tabernacle in 1862 that while Joseph 
was translating the Book of Abraham in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1835, fr° m tne papyrus found 
with the Egyptian mummies, the Prophet became impressed with the idea that polygamy 
would yet become an institution of the Mormon Church. Brigham Young was present, 
and was much annoyed at the statement made by Phelps; but it is highly probable that 
it was the real secret that the latter then divulged." — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 182. 

272 



THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY 



273 



like David and Solomon. In the Book of Jacob ii. 24-28, we find 
these commands : — 

" Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which 
thing was abominable before me saith the Lord ; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, 
I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine 
arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins 
of Joseph. 

"Wherefore, I, the Lord God, will not suffer that this people shall do like 
unto them of old. Wherefore my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the 
word of the Lord ; for there shall not any man among you hath save it be one 
wife ; and concubines he shall have none ; for I, the Lord God, delighteth in the 
chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me ; thus saith 
the Lord of Hosts." 

The same view is expressed in the Book of Mosiah, where, 
among the sins of King Noah, it is mentioned that " he spent his 
time in riotous living with his wives and concubines," and in the 
Book of Ether x. 5, where it is said that " Riplakish did not do 
that which was right in the sight of the Lord, for he did have 
many wives and concubines." 

Smith, at the beginning of his career as a prophet, inculcated 
the same views on this subject in his " revelations." Thus, in the 
one dated at Kirtland, February 9, 183 1, it was commanded (Sec. 
42), " Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave 
unto her and none else ; and he that looketh upon a woman to 
lust after her shall deny the faith, and shall not have the spirit, 
and if he repents not he shall be cast out." In another "reve- 
lation," dated the following month (Sec. 49), it was declared, 
" Wherefore it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they 
twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer 
the end of its creation." 1 These teachings may be with justness 
attributed to Rigdon, and we shall see on how little ground rests 
a carelessly made charge that he was the originator of the " spir- 
itual wife " notion. 

That there was a loosening of the views regarding the marriage 
tie almost as soon as Smith began his reign at Kirtland can be 
shown on abundant proof. Booth in one of his letters said, " It 
has been made known to one who has left his wife in New York 

1 " It is the strongest proof of the firm hold of a party, whether religious or politi- 
cal, upon the public mind, when it may offend with impunity against its own primary 
principles." — Milman, " History of Christianity." 



274 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



State, that he is entirely free from his wife, and he is at pleasure 
to take him a wife from among the Lamanites " (Indians). 1 That 
reports of polygamous practices among the Mormons while they 
were in Ohio were current was conceded in the section on mar- 
riage, inserted in the Kirtland edition of the " Book of Doctrine 
and Covenants " — " Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been 
reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy," etc. ; and 
is" further proved by Smith's denial in the Elders Journal? and by 
the declaration of the Presidents of the Seventies, withholding 
fellowship with any elder " who is guilty of polygamy.'* 

Of the enmity of the higher powers toward transgressors of 
the law of morality of this time, we find an amusing (some will say 
shocking) mention in Smith's "revelation" of October 25, 1831 
(Sec. 66). This " revelation" (announced as the words of " the 
Lord your Redeemer, the Saviour of the world ") was addressed 
to W. E. McLellin (who was soon after " rebuked " by the prophet 
for attempting to have a " revelation " on his own account). It 
declared that McLellin was " blessed for receiving mine everlasting 
covenant," directed him to go forth and preach, gave him power 
to heal the sick, and then added, " Commit no adultery, a tempta- 
tion with which thou hast been troubled." Could religious bouffe 
go to greater lengths ? 

Testimony as to the liberal Mormon view of the marriage rela- 
tion while the church was in Missouri is found in the case of one 
Lyon, reported by Smith on page 148 of Vol. XVI of the Mil- 
lennial Star. Lyon was the presiding high priest of one of the 
outlying branches of the church. Desiring to marry a Mrs. Jack- 
son, whose husband was absent in the East, Lyon announced a 
" revelation," ordering the marriage to take place, telling her that 
he knew by revelation that her husband was dead. He gained her 
consent in this way, but, before the ceremony was performed, Jack- 
son returned home, and, learning of Lyon's conduct, he had him 
brought before the authorities for trial. The high priest was 
found guilty enough to be deposed from his office, but not from his 
church membership. 

There is abundant testimony from Mormon sources to show 
that the doctrine of polygamy, with the "spiritual wife" adjunct, 
was practised in Nauvoo for some time before Joseph Smith's 

1 Howe's " Mormonism Unveiled." 2 p. 157, ante. 



THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY 



275 



death. A very orthodox Mormon witness on this point is Eliza R. 
Snow. In her biography of her brother, Lorenzo . Snow, 1 the 
recent head of the church, she gives this account of her connection 
with polygamy : — 

"While my brother was absent on this [his first] mission to Europe [1840- 
1843], changes had taken place with me, one of eternal import, of which I sup- 
posed him to be entirely ignorant. The Prophet Joseph had taught me. the 
principle of plural or celestial marriage, and I was married to him for time and 
eternity. In consequence of the ignorance of most of the Saints, as well as 
people of the world, on this subject, it was not mentioned, only privately between 
the few whose minds were enlightened on the subject. Not knowing how my 
brother [he returned on April 12, 1843] would receive it, I did not feel at liberty, 
and did not wish to assume the responsibility, of instructing him in the principle 
of plural marriage. ... I informed my husband [the prophet] of the situation, 
and requested him to open the subject to my brother. A favorable opportunity 
soon presented, and, seated together on the bank of the Mississippi River, they 
had a most interesting conversation. The prophet afterward told me he found 
that my brother's mind had been previously enlightened on the subject in ques- 
tion. That Comforter which Jesus says shall ' lead unto all truth 1 had penetrated 
his understanding, and, while in England, had given him an intimation of what 
at that time, was to many a secret. This was the result of living near the Lord. 

"It was at the private interview referred to above that the Prophet Joseph 
unbosomed his heart, and described the trying ordeal he experienced in over- 
coming the repugnance of his feelings, the natural result of the force of education 
and social custom, relative to the introduction of plural marriage. He knew the 
voice of God — he knew the command of the Almighty to him was to go forward 
— to set the example and establish celestial plural marriage. . . . Yet the 
prophet hesitated and deferred from time to time, until an angel of God stood by 
him with a drawn sword, and told him that, unless he moved forward and estab- 
lished plural marriage, his priesthood would be taken from him and he should be 
destroyed. This testimony he not only bore to my brother, but also to others." 2 

1 "This biography and autobiography of my brother Lorenzo Snow has been writ- 
ten as a tribute of sisterly affection for him, and as a token of sincere respect to his 
family. It is designed to be handed down in lineal descent, from generation to genera- 
tion, — to be preserved as a family memorial." — Extract from the preface. 

2 " Biography of Lorenzo Snow " (1884), pp. 68-70. Young married some of Smith's 
spiritual widows after the prophet's death, and four of them, including Eliza Snow, 
appear in Crockwell's illustrated " Biographies of Young's Wives," published in Utah. 

Catherine Lewis, who, after passing two years with the Mormons, escaped from 
Nauvoo, after taking the preliminary degrees of the endowment, says : " The Twelve 
took Joseph's wives after his death. Kimball and Young took most of them; the 
daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph's wives. I heard her say to her mother : ' I will 
never be sealed to my father [meaning as a wife], and I would never have been sealed 
[married] to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, 
and they deceived me by sayjng the salvation of our whole family depended on it.' 
The Apostles said they only took Joseph's wives to raise up children, carry them through 



2/6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Smith's versatility as a fabricator seems to give him a leading 
place in that respect in the record of mankind. Snow says that 
he asked the prophet to set him right if he should see him indulg- 
ing in any practice that might lead him astray, and the prophet 
assured him that he would never be guilty of any serious error. 
" It was one of Snow's peculiarities," observes his sister, " to do 
nothing by halves " ; and he exemplified this in this instance by 
having two wives " sealed " to him at the same time in 1845, 
adding two more very soon afterward, and another in 1848. "It 
was distinctly understood," says his sister, "and agreed between 
them, that their marriage relations should not, for the time being, 
be divulged to the world." 

The testimony of John D. Lee in regard to the practice of 
polygamy in Illinois is very circumstantial, and Lee was a con- 
scientious polygamist to the day of his death. He says 1 that he 
was directed in this matter by principle and not by passion, and 
goes on to explain : — 

" In those days I did not always make due allowance for the failings of the 
weaker vessels. I then expected perfection in all women. I know now that I 
was foolish in looking for that in anything human. I have, for slight offences, 
turned away good-meaning young women that had been sealed to me, and 
refused to hear their excuses, but sent them away broken-hearted. In this I did 
wrong. I have regretted the same in sorrow for many years. . . . Should my 
history ever fall into the hands of Emeline Woolsey or Polly Ann Workman, I 
wish them to know that, with my last breath, I asked God to pardon me the 
wrong I did them, when I drove them from me, poor young girls as they were." 

Lee says that in the winter of 1 843-1 844 Smith set one Sidney 
Hay Jacobs to writing a pamphlet giving selections from the 
Scriptures bearing on the practice of polygamy and advocating 
that doctrine. The appearance of this pamphlet created so much 
unfavorable comment (even Hyrum Smith denouncing it " as from 
beneath ") that Joseph deemed it best to condemn it in the Wasp, 
although men in his confidence were busy advocating its teachings. 

The " revelation " sanctioning plural marriages is dated July 12, 
1843, and Lee says that Smith "dared not proclaim it publicly," 
but taught it " confidentially," urging his followers " to surrender 
themselves to God " for their salvation ; and " in the winter of 1845, 

to the next world, and there deliver them up to him; by so doing they would gain his 
approbation." — "Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons." 
1 " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 200. 



THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY 



27; 



meetings were held all over the city of Nauvoo, and the spirit of 
Elijah was taught in the different families, as a foundation to the 
order of celestial marriage, as well as the law of adoption." 1 The 
Saints were also taught that Gentiles had no right to perform the 
marriage ceremony, and that their former marriage relations were 
invalid, and that they could be " sealed " to new wives under the 
authority of the church. 

Lee gives a complete record of his plural marriages, which is 
interesting, showing how the business was conducted at the start. 
His second wife, the daughter of a wealthy farmer near Quincy, 
Illinois, was "sealed" to him in Nauvoo in 1845, after she had 
been an inmate of his house for three months. His third and 
fourth wives were " sealed " to him soon after, but Young took a 
fancy to wife No. 3 (who had borne Lee a son), and, after 
much persuasion, she was " sealed " to Young. At this same " seal- 
ing " Lee took wife No. 4, a girl whom he had baptized in 
Tennessee. In the spring of 1845 two sisters of his first wife and 
their mother were "sealed" to him; he married the mother, he 
says, "for the salvation of her eternal state." At the completion 
of the Nauvoo Temple he took three more wives. At Council 
Bluffs, in 1847, Brigham Young "sealed" him to three more, two 
of them sisters, in one night, and he secured the fourteenth soon 
after, the fifteenth in 185 1, the sixteenth in 1856, the seventeenth 
in 1858 ("a dashing young bride"), the eighteenth in 1859, and 
the nineteenth and last in Salt Lake City. He says he claimed 
"only eighteen true wives," as he married Mrs. Woolsey " for her 
soul's sake, and she was nearly sixty years old." By these wives 
he had sixty-four children, of whom fifty-four were living when 
his book was written. 

Ebenezer Robinson, explaining in the Return a statement 
signed by him and his wife in October, 1842, to offset Bennett's 
charges, in which they declared that they " knew of no other form 
of marriage ceremony " except the one in the " Book of Doctrine 
and Covenants," said that this statement was then true, as the 
heads of the church had not yet taught the new system to others. 
But they had heard it talked of, and the prophet's brother, Don 
Carlos, in June, 1841, had said to Robinson, "Any man who will 
teach and practise spiritual wifery will go to hell, no matter if it is 

1 "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 165. 



278 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



my brother Joseph." Hyrum Smith, who first opposed the doc- 
trine, went to Robinson's house in December, 1843, and taught the 
system to him and his wife. Robinson was told of the " revela- 
tion " to Joseph a few days after its date, and just as he was leav- 
ing Nauvoo on a mission to New York. He, Law, and William 
Marks opposed the innovation. He continues : " We returned 
home from that mission the latter part of November, 1843. Soon 
after our return, I was told that when we were gone the c revela- 
tion ' was presented to and read in the High Council in Nauvoo, 
three of the members of which refused to accept it as from the Lord, 
President Marks, Cowles, and Counsellor Leonard Soby." Cowles 
at once resigned from the High Council and the Presidency of the 
church at Nauvoo, and was looked on as a seceder. 

Robinson gives convincing testimony that, as early as 1843, 
the ceremonies of the Endowment House were performed in Nau- 
voo by a secret organization called " The Holy Order," and says 
that in June, 1844, he saw John Taylor clad in an endowment robe. 
He quotes a letter to himself from Orson Hyde, dated September 19, 
1844, in which Hyde refers guardedly to the new revelation and 
the " Holy Order " as " the charge which the prophet gave us," 
adding, " and we know that Elder Rigdon does not know what it 
was." 1 

We may find the following references to this subject in Smith's 
diary : — 

"April 29, 1842. The Lord makes manifest to me many things which it is 
not wisdom for me to make public until others can witness the proof of them." 

" May 1 . I preached in the grove on the Keys of the Kingdom, etc. The 
Keys are certain signs and words by which the false spirits and personages can be 
detected from true, and which cannot be revealed to the Elders till the Temple is 
completed.'" 

" May 4. I spent the day in the upper part of my store ... in council with 
(Hyrum, Brigham Young and others) instructing them in the principles and order 
of the Priesthood, attending to washings, anointings, endowments. . . . The 
communications I made to this Council were of things spiritual, and to be received 
only by the spiritually minded ; and there was nothing made known to these men 
but what will be made known to all the Saints of the last days as soon as they are 
prepared to receive, and a proper place is prepared to communicate them." 2 

In one of Smith's dissertations, which are inserted here and 
there in his diary, is the following under date of August, 1842 : — 

1 The Return, Vol. II, p. 252. 2 Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, pp. 390-393. 



THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY 279 

" If we seek first the kingdom of God, all good things will be added. So with 
Solomon. First he asked wisdom and God gave it to him, and with it every de- 
sire of his heart, even things which might be considered abominable to all who 
understand the order of heaven only in part, but which in reality were right, 
because God gave and sanctioned them by special revelation." 1 

While the Mormon leaders, Lorenzo Snow and others, were in 
the Utah penitentiary after conviction under the Edmunds anti- 
polygamy law, refusing pardons on condition that they would give 
up the practice of polygamy, the Deseret News of May 20, 1886, 
printed an affidavit made on February 16, 1874, at the request 
of Joseph F. Smith, by William Clayton, who was a clerk in 
the prophet's office in Nauvoo and temple recorder, to show the 
world that " the martyred prophet is responsible to God and the 
world for this doctrine." The affidavit recites that while Clayton 
and the prophet were taking a walk, in February, 1843, Smith first 
broached to him the subject of plural marriages, and told him that 
the doctrine was right in the sight of God, adding, " It is your 
privilege to have all the wives you want." He gives the names of 
a number of the wives whom Smith married at this time, adding 
that his wife Emma " was cognizant of the fact of some, if not all, 
of these being his wives, and she generally treated them very 
kindly." He says that on July 12, 1843, Hyrum offered to read 
the " revelation " to Emma if the prophet would write it out, say- 
ing, " I believe I can convince her of its truth, and you will here- 
after have peace/* Joseph smiled, and remarked, "You do not 
know Emma as well as I do," but he thereupon dictated the "reve- 
lation " and Clayton wrote it down. An examination of its text 
will show how largely it was devoted to Emma's subjugation. 
When Hyrum returned from reading it to the prophet's lawful 
wife, he said that "he had never received a more severe talking to 
in his life ; that Emma was very bitter and full of resentment and 
anger." Joseph repeated his remark that his brother did not know 
Emma as well as he did, and, putting the " revelation " into his 
pocket, they went out. 2 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, p. 774. 

2 Jenson's " Historical Record," Vol. VI, pp. 233-234, gives the names of twenty- 
seven women who, " besides a few others about whom we have been unable to get all 
the necessary information, were sealed to the Prophet Joseph during the last three years 
of his life." 

"At the present time," says Stenhouse (" Rocky Mountain Saints"), p. 185, "there 
are probably about a dozen sisters in Utah who proudly acknowledge themselves to be 



280 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



At the conference in Salt Lake City on August 28, 1852, at 
which the first public announcement of the revelation was made, 
Brigham Young said in the course of his remarks : " Though that 
doctrine has not been preached by the Elders, this people have 
believed in it for many years. 1 The original copy of this revela- 
tion was burned up. William Clayton was the man who wrote it 
from the mouth of the Prophet. In the meantime it was in Bishop 
Whitney's possession. He wished the privilege to copy it, which 
brother Joseph granted. Sister Emma burnt the original." The 
" revelation," he added, had been locked up for years in his desk, 
on which he had a patent lock. 2 

Further proof is not needed to show that this doctrine was the 
offspring of Joseph Smith, and that its original object was to grant 
him unrestricted indulgence of his passions. 

Justice to Sidney Rigdon requires that his memory should be 
cleared of the charge, which has been made by more than one 
writer, that the spiritual wife doctrine was of his invention. There 
is the strongest evidence to show that it was Smith's knowledge 
that he could not win Rigdon over to polygamy which made the 
prophet so bitter against his old counsellor, and that it was Rig- 

the ' wives of Joseph,' and how many others there may be who held that relationship 
' no man knoweth.' " 

1 As evidence that polygamy was not countenanced by Smith and his associates in 
Nauvoo, there has been cited a notice in the Times and Seasons of February, 1844, 
signed by Joseph and Hyrum Smith, cutting off an elder named Brown for preaching 
" polygamy and other false and corrupt doctrines," and a letter of Hyrum, dated March 
15, 1844, threatening to deprive of his license and membership any elder who preached 
" that a man having a certain priesthood may have as many wives as he pleases." The 
Deseret News of May 20, 1886, noticing these and other early denials, justifies the false- 
hoods, saying that " Jesus enjoined his Disciples on several occasions to keep to themselves 
principles that he made known to them," that the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants " 
gave the same instruction, and that the elders, as the " revelation " was not yet promul- 
gated, " were justified in denying those imputations, and at the same time avoiding the 
avowal of such doctrines as were not yet intended for this world." P. P. Pratt flatly 
denied, in England, in 1846, that any such doctrine was known or practised by the 
Saints, and John Taylor (afterward the head of the church), in a discussion in France 
in July, 1850, declared that "these things are too outrageous to admit of belief." The 
latter false statements would be covered by the excuse of the Deseret News. 

2 Deseret News, extra, September 14, 1852. Young declared in a sermon in Salt 
Lake City in July, 1855, that he was among the doubters when the prophet revealed the 
new doctrine, saying : " It was the first time in my life that I desired the grave, and I 
could hardly get over it for a long time. . . . And I have had to examine myself from 
that day to this, and watch my faith and carefully meditate, lest I should be found 
desiring the grave more than I ought to." His examinations proved eminently suc- 
cessful. 



THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY 



28l 



don's opposition to the new doctrine that made Young so deter- 
mined to drive him out of church after the prophet's death. 

When Rigdon returned to Pittsburg,UPennsylvania, to establish 
his own Mormon church there, he began in October, 1844, the pub- 
lication of a revived Latter-Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate. 
Stating "the greater cause" of the opposition of the leaders of 
Nauvoo to him, in an editorial, he said : — 

" Know then that the so-called Twelve Apostles at Nauvoo are now teach- 
ing the doctrine of what is called Spiritual Wives ; that a man may have more 
wives than one ; and they are not only teaching it, but practising it, and this doc- 
trine is spreading alarmingly through that apostate branch of the church of Latter- 
Day Saints. Their greatest objection to us was our opposition to this doctrine, 
knowing, as they did, that we had got the fact in possession. It created alarm, 
great alarm ; every effort was made while we were there to effect something that 
might screen them from the consequence of exposure. . . . 

"This doctrine of a man having more wives than one is the cause which has 
induced these men to put at defiance the ecclesiastical arrangements of the church, 
and, what is equally criminal, to do despite unto the moral excellence of the doc- 
trine and covenants of the church, setting up an order of things of their own, in 
violation of all the rules and regulations known to the Saints." 

In the same editorial Rigdon prints a statement by a gentle- 
man who was at Nauvoo at the time, and for whose veracity he 
vouches, which said, " It was said to me by many that they had no 
objection to Elder Rigdon but his opposition to the spiritual wife 
system." 

Benjamin Winchester, who was one of the earliest missionaries 
sent out from Kirtland, adds this testimony in a letter to Elder 
John Hardy of Boston, Massachusetts, whose trial in 1844 f° r 
opposing the spiritual wife doctrine occasioned wide comment : — 

" As regards the trial of Elder Rigdon at Nauvoo, it was a forced affair, got 
up by the Twelve to get him out of their way, that they might the better arrogate 
to themselves higher authority than they ever had, or anybody ever dreamed they 
would have ; and also (as they perhaps hope) to prevent a complete expose" of the 
spiritual wife system, which they knew would deeply implicate themselves." 



CHAPTER XI 



PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF POLYGAMY 

Although there was practically no concealment of the prac- 
tice of polygamy by the Mormons resident in Utah after their 
arrival there, it was not until five years from that date that open 
announcement was made by the church of the important " revela- 
tion." This "revelation" constitutes Sec. 132 of the modern 
edition of the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants," and bears this 
heading : " Revelation on the Eternity of the Marriage Covenant, 
including Plurality of Wives. Given through Joseph, the Seer, in 
Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, July 12, 1843." All its essen- 
tial parts are as follows : — 

/ « Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as 
you have inquired of my hand, to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justi- 
fied my servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ; as also Moses, David and Solomon, 
my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives 
and concubines : 

" Behold ! and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching 
this matter : 

" Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I 
am about to give unto you ; for all those who have this law revealed unto them 
must obey the same ; 

" For behold ! I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant ; and if 
ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned ; for no one can reject this cove- 
nant, and be permitted to enter into my glory ; 

" For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which 
was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted 
from before the foundation of the world : 

" And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for 
the fullness of my glory ; and he that receiveth a fullness thereof, must and shall 
abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God. 

" And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these : All 
covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, 
associations, or expectations, that are not made, and entered into, and sealed, by 
the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for 
all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through 

282 



THE DOCTRINE OF POLYGAMY 



283 



the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this 
power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the 
last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time, on whom this power 
and the keys of this Priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force, 
in and after the resurrection from the dead ; for all contracts that are not made 
unto this end, have an end when men are dead. . . . 

" I am the Lord thy God, and I give unto you this commandment, that no 
man shall come unto the Father but by me, or by my word, which is my law, 
saith the Lord ; . . . 

"Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not 
by me, nor by my word ; and he covenant with her so long as he is in the world, 
and she with him, their covenant and marriage are not of force when they are 
dead, and when they are out of the world ; therefore, they are not bound by any 
law when they are out of the world ; 

"Therefore, when they are out of the world, they neither marry, nor are 
given in marriage ; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are minis- 
tering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an ex- 
ceeding, and an eternal weight of glory ; 

" For these angels did not abide my law, therefore they cannot be enlarged, 
but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to 
all eternity, and from henceforth are not Gods, but are angels of God, for ever 
and ever. 

" And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife, and make a cove- 
nant with her for time and for all eternity, if that covenant is not by me, or by my 
word, which is my law, and is not sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, through 
him whom I have anointed, and appointed unto this power — then it is not valid, 
neither of force when they are out of the world, because they are not joined by 
me, saith the Lord, neither by my word ; when they are out of the world, it can- 
not be received there, because the angels and the Gods are appointed there, by 
whom they cannot pass ; they cannot, therefore, inherit my glory, for my house 
is a house of order, saith the Lord God. 

" And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which 
is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by 
the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed 
this power, and the keys of this Priesthood ; and it shall be said unto them, ye 
shall come forth in the first resurrection ; and if it be after the first resurrection, 
in the next resurrection ; and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and 
powers, dominions, all heights and depths — then shall it be written in the Lambs 
Book of Life, that he shall commit no murder whereby to shed innocent blood, 
and if ye abide in my covenant, and commit no murder whereby to shed innocent 
blood, it shall be done unto them in all things whatsoever my servant hath put upon 
them, in time, and through all eternity, and shall be of full force when they are 
out of the world : and they shall pass by the angels, and the Gods, which are set 
there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their 
heads, which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds for ever and 
ever. 



284 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" Then shall they be Gods, because they have no end ; therefore shall they 
be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue ; then shall they be 
above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be Gods, 
because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them. 

" Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye abide my law, ye cannot attain to 
this glory ; . . . 

" And verily, verily I say unto you, that whatsoever you seal on earth, shall 
be sealed in Heaven ; and whatsoever you bind on earth, in my name, and by my 
word, saith the Lord, it shall be eternally bound in the heavens ; and whosesoever 
sins you remit on earth shall be remitted eternally in the heavens ; and whoseso- 
ever sins you retain on earth, shall be retained in heaven. 

" And again, verily I say, whomsoever you bless, I will bless, and whomso- 
ever you curse, I will curse, saith the Lord ; for I, the Lord, am thy God. . . . 

" Verily I say unto you, a commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma 
Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself, and partake 
not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her ; for I did it, saith the Lord, 
to prove you all, as I did Abraham ; and that I might require an offering at your 
hand, by covenant and sacrifice. 

"And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been 
given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me ; and 
those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the 
Lord God ; 

" For I am the Lord, thy God, and ye shall obey my voice ; and I give unto 
my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things, for he hath been 
faithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him. 

"And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto 
my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this command- 
ment, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord ; for I am the Lord thy God, and 
will destroy her, if she abide not in my law ; 

" But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph 
do all things for her, even as he hath said ; and I will bless him and multiply 
him, and give unto him an hundred fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, 
brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal 
lives in the eternal worlds. 

" And again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his 
trespasses ; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has tres- 
passed against me ; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her, and multiply her, and 
make her heart to rejoice. . . . 

" And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood, if any man espouse 
a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent ; and if he 
espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then 
is he justified ; he cannot commit adultery, for they are given unto him ; for he 
cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else. 

" And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit 
adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him, therefore is he 
justified. 



THE DOCTRINE OF POLYGAMY 



285 



" But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with 
another man ; she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed ; for they are 
given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my command- 
ment, and to fulfill the promise which was given by my Father before the founda- 
tion of the world ; and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may 
bear the souls of men ; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he 
may be glorified. 

" And again, verily, verily I say unto you, if any man have a wife who holds 
the keys of this power, and he teacheth unto her the law of my priesthood, as 
pertaining to these things, then shall she believe, and administer unto him, or she 
shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God, for I will destroy her ; for I will 
magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law. 

" Therefore, it shall be lawful in me, if she receive not this law, for him to 
receive all things, whatsoever I, the Lord his God, will give unto him, because 
she did not administer unto him according to my word ; and she then becomes 
the transgressor ; and he is exempt from the law of Sarah ; who administered 
unto Abraham according to the law, when I commanded Abraham to take Hagar 
to wife. 

"And now, as pertaining to this law, verily, verily I say unto you, I will 
reveal more unto you, hereafter ; therefore, let this suffice for the present. Behold, 
I am Alpha and Omega. Amen." 

This jumble of doctrinal and family commands bears internal 
evidence of the truth of Clayton's account of its offhand dictation 
with a view to its immediate submission to the prophet's wife, who 
was already in a state of rebellion because of his infidelities. 

The publication of the " revelation " was made at a Church 
Conference which opened in Salt Lake City on August 28, 1852, 
and was called especially to select elders for missionary work. 1 
At the beginning of the second day's session Orson Pratt an- 
nounced that, unexpectedly, he had been called on to address the 
conference on the subject of a plurality of wives. "We shall 
endeavor," he said, " to set forth before this enlightened assembly 
some of the causes why the Almighty has revealed such a doc- 
trine, and why it is considered a part and portion of our religious 
faith." 

He then took up the attitude of the church, as a practiser of 
this doctrine, toward the United States government, saying : — 

" I believe that they will not, under our present form of government (I mean 
the government of the United States), try us for treason for believing and prac- 
tising our religious notions and ideas. I think, if I am not mistaken, that the 

1 For text of the addresses at this conference, see Deseret News, extra, September 
14, 1852. 



286 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



constitution gives the privilege to all of the inhabitants of this country, of the free 
exercise of their religious notions, and the freedom of their faith and the practice 
of it. Then, if it can be proved to a demonstration that the Latter-Day Saints 
have actually embraced, as a part and portion of their religion, the doctrine of a 
plurality of wives, it is constitutional. And should there ever be laws enacted by 
this government to restrict them from the free exercise of their religion, such laws 
must be unconstitutional." 

Thus, at this early date in the history of Utah, was stated the 
Mormon doctrine of the constitutional foundation of this belief, 
and, in the views then stated, may be discovered the reason for the 
bitter opposition which the Mormon church is still making to a 
constitutional amendment specifically declaring that polygamy is 
a violation of the fundamental law of the United States. 

Pratt then spoke at great length on the necessity and rightful- 
ness of polygamy. Taking up the doctrine of a previous existence 
of all souls and a kind of nobility among the spirits, he said that 
the most likely place for the noblest spirits to take their tabernacles 
was among the Saints, and he continued : — 

" Now let us inquire what will become of those individuals who have this law 
taught unto them in plainness, if they reject it." (A voice in the stand " They will 
be damned.") " I will tell you. They will be damned, saith the Lord, in the reve- 
lation he hath given. Why ? Because, where much is given, much is required. 
Where there is great knowledge unfolded for the exaltation, glory and happiness 
of the sons and daughters of God, if they close up their hearts, if they reject the 
testimony of his word and will, and do not give heed to the principles he has 
ordained for their good, they are worthy of damnation, and the Lord has said 
they shall be damned." 

After Brigham Young had made a statement concerning the 
history of the "revelation," already referred to, the "revelation" 
itself was read. 

The Millennial Star (Liverpool) published the proceedings of 
this conference in a supplement to its Volume XV, and the text of 
the "revelation" in its issue of January I, 1853, saying editorially 
in the next number : — 

" None [of the revelations] seem to penetrate so deep, or be so well calcu- 
lated to shake to its very center the social structure which has been reared and 
vainly nurtured by this professedly wise and Christian generation ; none more 
conclusively exhibit how surely an end must come to all the works, institutions, 
ordinances and covenants of men ; none more portray the eternity of God's pur- 



THE DOCTRINE OF POLYGAMY 



287 



pose — and, we may say, none have carried so mighty an influence, or had the 
power to stamp their divinity upon the mind by absorbing every feeling of the 
soul, to the extent of the one which has appeared in our last." 

With the Mormon church in England, however, the publication 
of the new doctrine proved a bombshell, as is shown by the fact 
that 2164 excommunications in the British Isles were reported to 
the semiannual conference of December 31, 1852, and 1776 to the 
conference of the following June. 

The doctrine of " sealing " has been variously stated. Accord- 
ing to one early definition, the man and the woman who are to be 
properly mated are selected in heaven in a preexistent state ; if, 
through a mistake in an earthly marriage, A has got the spouse 
intended for B, the latter may consider himself a husband to Mrs. 
A. Another early explanation which may be cited was thus stated 
by Henry Rowe in the Boston Investigator oi February 3, 1845 : — 

" The spiritual wife doctrine I will explain, as taught me by Elder W e, 

as taught by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Elder Adams, William Smith, and 
the rest of the Quorum, etc., etc. Joseph had a revelation from God that there 
were a number of spirits to be born into the world before their exaltation in the 
next ; that Christ would not come until all these spirits received or entered 
their ' tabernacles of clay 1 ; that these spirits were hovering around the world, 
and at the door of bad houses, watching a chance of getting into their taber- 
nacles ; that God had provided an honorable way for them to come forth — that 
was, by the Elders in Israel sealing up virtuous women ; and as there was no 
provision made for woman in the Scriptures, their only chance of heaven was to 
be sealed up to some Elder for time and eternity, and be a star in his crown forever ; 
that those who were the cause of bringing forth these spirits would receive a re- 
ward, the ratio of which reward should be the greater or less according to the num- 
ber they were the means of bringing forth." 

Brigham Young's definition of " spiritual wifeism " was thus 
expressed : " And I would say, as no man can be perfect without 
the woman, so no woman can be perfect without a man to lead 
her. I tell you the truth as it is in the bosom of eternity ; and I 
say to every man upon the face of the earth, if he wishes to be 
saved, he cannot be saved without a woman by his side. This is 
spiritual wifeism, that is, the doctrine of spiritual wives." 1 

The Mormon, under polygamy, was taught that he " married " 
for time, but was " sealed " for eternity. The "sealing" was there- 
fore the more important ceremony, and was performed in the En- 

1 Times and Seasons, Vol. VI, p. 955. 



288 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



dowment House, with the accompaniment of secret oaths and 
mystic ceremonies. If a wife disliked her husband, and wished 
to be "sealed" to a man of her choice, the Mormon church would 
marry her to the latter 1 — a marriage made actual in every sense 
— if he was acceptable as a Mormon; and, if the first husband 
also wanted to be " sealed " to her, the church would perform a 
mock ceremony to satisfy this husband. " It is impossible," says 
Hyde, " to state all the licentiousness, under the name of religion, 
that these sealing ordinances have occasioned." 2 

A Mormon preacher never hesitated to go to any lengths in 
justifying the doctrine of plural marriages. One illustration of 
this may suffice. Orson Hyde, in a discourse in the Salt Lake 
Tabernacle in March, 1857, made the following argument to sup- 
port a claim that Jesus Christ was a polygamist : — 

" It will be borne in mind that, once on a time, there was a marriage in Cana 
of Galilee ; and on a careful reading of that transaction it will be discovered that 
no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that occasion. If he was 
never married, his intimacy with Mary and Martha, and the other Mary also, 
whom Jesus loved, must have been highly unbecoming and improper, to say the 
best of it. I will venture to say that, if Jesus Christ was now to pass through the 
most pious countries in Christendom, with a train of women such as used to 
follow him, fondling about him, combing his hair, anointing him with precious 
ointments, washing his feet with tears and wiping them with the hair of their 
heads, and unmarried, or even married, he would be mobbed, tarred and feathered, 
and rode, not on an ass, but on a rail. . . . Did he multiply, and did he see 
his seed? Did he honor his Father's law by complying with it, or did he not? 
Others may do as they like, but I will not charge our Saviour with neglect or 
transgression in this or any other duty." 3 

The doctrine of "adoption," referred to, taught that the direct 
line of the true priesthood was broken with the death of Christ's 
apostles, and that the rights of the lineage of Abraham could be 
secured only by being "adopted" by a modern apostle, all of 
whom were recognized as lineal descendants of Abraham. Re- 
course was here had to the Scriptures, and Romans iv. 16 was 

1 One of Stenhouse's informants about the "reformation" of 1856 in Utah writes: 
"It was hinted, and secretly taught by authority, that women should form relations 
with more than one man." On this Stenhouse says : " The author has no personal 
knowledge, from the present leaders of the church, of this teaching; but he has often 
heard that something would then be taught which ' would test the brethren as much as 
polygamy had tried the sisters.' " — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 301. 

2 " Mormonism," p. 84. 

3 Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 259. 



THE DOCTRINE OF POLYGAMY 289 

quoted to sustain this doctrine. The first "adoptions " took place 
in the Nauvoo Temple. Lee was " adopted to" Brigham Young, 
and Young's and Lee's children were then " adopted to " their own 
fathers. 

With this necessary explanation of the introduction of polyg- 
amy, we may take up the narrative of events at Nauvoo. 



u 




CHAPTER XII 



THE SUPPRESSION OF THE EXPOSITOR 

Smith was now to encounter a kind of resistance within the 
church that he had never met. In all previous apostasies, where 
members had dared to attack his character or question his 
authority, they had been summarily silenced, and in most cases 
driven at once out of the Mormon community. But there were 
men at Nauvoo above the average of the Mormon convert as 
regards intelligence and wealth, who refused to follow the prophet 
in his new doctrine regarding marriage, and whose opposition took 
the very practical shape of the establishment of a newspaper in 
the Mormon city to expose him and to defend themselves. 

In his testimony in the Higbee trial Smith had accused a 
prominent Mormon, Dr. R. D. Foster, of stealing and of gross 
insults to women. Dr. Foster, according to current report, had 
found Smith at his house, and had received from his wife a con- 
fession that Smith had been persuading her to become one of his 
spiritual wives. 1 

Among the leading members of the church at Nauvoo at this 
time were two brothers, William and Wilson Law. They were 
Canadians, and had brought considerable property with them, and 
in the "revelation" of January 19, 1841, William Law was among 
those who were directed to take stock in Nauvoo House, and was 
named as one of the First Presidency, and was made registrar of 
the University. Wilson Law was a regent of the University and 
a major general of the Legion. General Law had been an espe- 
cial favorite of Smith. In writing to him while in hiding from the 

1 "At the May, 1844, term of the Hancock Circuit Court two indictments were 
found against Smith by the grand jury — one for adultery and one for perjury. To the 
surprise of all, on the Monday following, the Prophet appeared in court and demanded 
that he be tried on the last-named indictment. The prosecutor not being ready, a con- 
tinuance was entered to the next term." — Gregg, " History of Hancock County," p. 301. 

290 



THE SUPPRESSION OF THE EXPOSITOR 



291 



Missouri authorities in 1842, Smith says, "I love that soul that 
is so nobly established in that clay of yours." 1 At the conference 
of April, 1844, Hyrum Smith said: " I wish to speak about Messrs. 
Law's steam mill. There has been a great deal of bickering about 
it. The mill has been a great benefit to the city. It has brought 
in thousands who would not have come here. The Messrs. Law 
have sunk their capital and done a great deal of good. It is out 
of character to cast any aspersions on the Messrs. Law." 

Dr. Foster, the Laws, and Counsellor Sylvester Emmons 
became greatly stirred up about the spiritual wife doctrine, and 
the effort of Smith and those in his confidence to teach and 
enforce the doctrine of plural wives ; and they finally decided to 
establish in Nauvoo a newspaper that would openly attack the 
new order of things. The name chosen for this newspaper was 
the Expositor, and Emmons was its editor. 2 Its motto was : 
" The Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth," and 
its prospectus announced as its purpose, "Unconditional repeal of 
the city charter — to correct the abuses of the unit power — to 
advocate disobedience to political revelations." Only one number 
of this newspaper was ever issued, but that number was almost 
directly the cause of the prophet's death. 

The most important feature of the Expositor (which bore date 
of June 7, 1844) was a "preamble" and resolutions of " seceders 
from the church at Nauvoo," and affidavits by Mr. and Mrs. 
William Law and Austin Cowles setting forth that Hyrum Smith 
had read the "revelation" concerning polygamy to William Law 
and to the High Council, and that Mrs. Law had read it. 3 

The "preamble" affirmed the belief of the seceders in the 
Mormon Bible and the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants," but 
declared their intention to " explode the vicious principles of 
Joseph Smith," adding, "We are aware, however, that we are 
hazarding every earthly blessing, particularly property, and prob- 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 695. 

2 Emmons went direct to Beardstown, Illinois, after the destruction of the paper, 
and lived there till the day of his death, a leading citizen. He established the first 
newspaper published in Beardstown, and was for sixteen years the mayor of the city. 

8 These were the only affidavits printed in the Expositor. More than one descrip- 
tion of the paper has stated that it contained many more. Thus, Appleton's " American 
Encyclopedia.'' under '•'Mormons," says, "In the first number (there was only one) 
they printed the affidavits of sixteen women to the effect that Joseph Smith and Sidney 
Rigdon and others had endeavored to convert them to the spiritual wife doctrine," 



292 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



ably life itself, in striking this blow at tyranny and oppression." 
Many of them, it was explained, had sought a reformation of the 
church without any public exposure, but they had been spurned, 
" particularly by Joseph, who would state that, if he had been or 
was guilty of the charges we would charge him with, he would 
not make acknowledgment, but would rather be damned, for it 
would detract from his dignity and would consequently prove the 
overthrow of the church. We would ask him, on the other hand, 
if the overthrow of the church were not inevitable ; to which he 
often replied that we would all go to hell together and convert it 
into a heaven by casting the devil out ; and, says he, hell is by no 
means the place this world of fools supposes it to be, but, on the 
contrary, it is quite an agreeable place." 

The "preamble" further set forth the methods employed by 
Smith to induce women from other countries, who had joined the 
Mormons in Nauvoo, to become his spiritual wives, reciting the 
arguments advanced, and thus summing up the general result : 
" She is thunderstruck, faints, recovers and refuses. The 
prophet damns her if she rejects. She thinks of the great sacri- 
fice, and of the many thousand miles she has travelled over sea 
and land that she might save her soul from pending ruin, and 
replies, ' God's will be done and not mine.' The prophet and his 
devotees in this way are gratified." Smith's political aspirations 
were condemned as preposterous, and the false " doctrine of many 
gods " was called blasphemy. 

Fifteen resolutions followed. They declared against the evils 
named, and also condemned the order to the Saints to gather in 
haste at Nauvoo, explaining that the purpose of this command 
was to enable the men in control of the church to sell property at 
exorbitant prices, " and thus the wealth that is brought into the 
place is swallowed up by the one great throat, from whence there 
is no return." The seceders asserted that, although they had an 
intimate acquaintance with the affairs of the church, they did not 
know of any property belonging to it except the Temple. Finally, 
as speaking for the true church, they ordered all preachers to 
cease to teach the doctrine of plural gods, a plurality of wives, 
sealing, etc., and directed offenders in this respect to report and 
have their licenses renewed. Another feature of the issue was a 
column address signed by Francis M. Higbee, advising the citizens 



THE SUPPRESSION OF THE EXPOSITOR 



293 



of Hancock County not to send Hyrum Smith to the legislature, 
since to support him was to support Joseph, " a man who contends 
all governments are to be put down, and one established upon its 
ruins." 

The appearance of this sheet created the greatest excitement 
among the Mormon leaders that they had experienced since leav- 
ing Missouri. They recognized in it immediately a mouthpiece 
of men who were better informed than Bennett, and who were 
ready to address an audience composed both of their own flock 
and of their outlying non-Mormon neighbors, whose antipathy to 
them was already manifesting itself aggressively. To permit the 
continued publication of this sheet meant one of those surrenders 
which Smith had never made. 

The prophet: therefore took just such action as would have 
been expected of him in the circumstances. Calling a meeting of 
the City Council, he proceeded to put the Expositor and its editors 
on trial, as if that body was of a judicial instead of a legislative 
character. The minutes of this trial, which lasted all of Saturday, 
June 8, and a part of Monday, June 10, 1844, can De found in 
the Neighbor of June 19, of that year, filling six columns. The 
prophet-mayor occupied the chair, and the defendants were absent. 

The testimony introduced aimed at the start to break down 
the characters of Dr. Foster, Higbee, and the Laws. A mechanic 
testified that the Laws had bought "bogus" (counterfeit) dies of 
him. The prophet told how William Law had " pursued " him to 
recover $40,000 that Smith owed him. Hyrum Smith alleged 
that William Law had offered to give a man $500 if he would kill 
Hyrum, and had confessed adultery to him, making a still more 
heinous charge against Higbee. Hyrum referred " to the revela- 
tion of the High Council of the church, which has caused so much 
talk about a multiplicity of wives," and declared that it "con- 
cerned things which transpired in former days, and had no refer- 
ence to the present time." Testimony was also given to show 
that the Laws were not liberal to the poor, and that William's 
motto with his fellow-churchmen who owed him was, " Punctual- 
ity, punctuality." 1 This was naturally a serious offence in the 
eyes of the Smiths. 

1 The Expositor contained this advertisement : " The subscribers wish to inform all 
those who, through sickness or other misfortunes, are much limited in their means of 



294 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The prophet declared that the conduct of such men, and of 
such papers as the Expositor, was calculated to destroy the peace 
of the city. He unblushingly asserted that what he had preached 
about marriage only showed the order in ancient days, having 
nothing to do with the present time. In regard to the alleged 
revelation about polygamy he explained that, on inquiring of the 
Lord concerning the Scriptural teaching that " they neither marry 
nor are given in marriage in heaven," he received a reply to the 
effect that men in this life must marry in one of eternity, other- 
wise they must remain as angels, or be single in heaven. 

Smith then proposed that the Council " make some provision " 
for putting down the Expositor, declaring its allegations to be 
"treasonable against all chartered rights and privileges." He 
read from the federal and state constitutions to define his idea of 
the rights of the press, and quoted Blackstone on private wrongs. 
Hyrum openly advocated smashing the press and pieing the type. 
One councillor alone raised his voice for moderation, proposing to 
give the offenders a few days' notice, and to assess a fine of $300 
for every libel. W. W. Phelps (who was back in the fold again) 
held that the city charter gave them power to declare the news- 
paper a nuisance, and cited the spilling of the tea in Boston 
harbor as a precedent for an attack on the Expositor office. 
Finally, on June 10, this resolution was passed unanimously : — 

" Resolved by the City Council of the City of Nauvoo that the printing office 
from whence issues the Nauvoo Expositor is a public nuisance, and also all of 
said Nauvoo Expositors which may be or exist in said establishment ; and the 
mayor is instructed to cause said printing establishment and papers to be removed 
without delay, in such manner as he shall direct." 

Smith, of course, made very prompt use of this authority, issu- 
ing the following order to the city marshal : — 

"You are hereby commanded to destroy the printing press from whence 
issues the Nauvoo Expositor, and pi the type of said printing establishment in 
the street, and burn all the Expositors and libellous hand bills found in said 
establishment ; and if resistance be offered to the execution of this order, by the 
owners or others, destroy the house ; and if any one threatens you or the Mayor 
or the officers of the city, arrest those who threaten you ; and fail not to execute 
this order without delay, and make due return thereon. 

" Joseph Smith, Mayor.'''' 

procuring bread for their families, that we have allotted Thursday of every week to 
grind toll free for them, till grain becomes plentiful after harvest. — W. & W. Law." 



THE SUPPRESSION OF THE EXPOSITOR 2Q$ 



To meet any armed opposition which might arise, the acting 
major general of the Legion was thus directed : — 

" You are hereby commanded to hold the Nauvoo Legion in readiness forth- 
with to execute the city ordinances, and especially to remove the printing estab- 
lishment of the Nauvoo Expositor ; and this you are required to do at sight, under 
the penalty of the laws, provided the marshal shall require it and need your 
services. 

"Joseph Smith, 

"Lieutenant General Nauvoo Legion" 

The story of the compliance with the mayor's order is thus 
concisely told in the "marshal's return," "The within-named press 
and type is destroyed and pied according to order on this ioth day 
of June, 1844, at about eight o'clock p.m." The work was accom- 
plished without any serious opposition. The marshal appeared at 
the newspaper office, accompanied by an escort from the Legion, 
and forced his way into the building. The press and type were 
carried into the street, where the press was broken up with ham- 
mers, and all that was combustible was burned. 

Dr. Foster and the Laws fled at once to Carthage, Illinois, under 
the belief that their lives were in danger. The story of their flight 
and of the destruction of their newspaper plant by order of the Nau- 
voo authorities spread quickly all over the state, and in the neigh- 
boring counties the anti-Mormon feeling, that had for some time 
been growing more intense, was now fanned to fury. This feeling 
the Mormon leaders seemed determined to increase still further. 

The owners of the Expositor sued out at Carthage a writ for the 
removal to that place of Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo counsellors 
on a charge of a riot in connection with the destruction of their 
plant. This writ, when presented, was at once set aside by a writ 
of habeas corpus issued by the Nauvoo Municipal Court, but the 
case was heard before a Mormon justice of the peace on June 17, 
and he discharged the accused. As if this was not a sufficient 
defiance of public opinion, Smith, as mayor, published a "procla- 
mation" in the Neighbor of June 19, reciting the events in connec- 
tion with the attack on the Expositor, and closing thus : — 

" Our city is infested with a set of blacklegs, counterfeiters and debauchees, 
and that the proprietors of this press were of that class, the minutes of the 
Municipal Court fully testify, and in ridding our young and flourishing city of such 
characters, we are abused by not only villanous demagogues, but by some who, 



296 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



from their station and influence in society, ought rather to raise than depress the 
standard of human excellence. We have no disturbance or excitement among 
us, save what is made by the thousand and one idle rumors afloat in the country. 
Every one is protected in his person and property, and but few cities of a popula- 
tion of twenty thousand people, in the United States, hath less of dissipation or 
vice of any kind than the city of Nauvoo. 

" Of the correctness of our conduct in this affair, we appeal to every high 
court in the state, and to its ordeal we are willing to appear at any time that His 
Excellency, Governor Ford, shall please to call us before it. I, therefore, in be- 
half of the Municipal Court of Nauvoo, warn the lawless not to be precipitate in 
any interference in our affairs, for as sure as there is a God in Israel we shall ride 
triumphant over all oppression. 

u Joseph Smith, Mayor." 



CHAPTER XIII 



UPRISING OF THE NON-MORMONS — SMITH'S ARREST 

The gauntlet thus thrown down by Smith was promptly taken 
up by his non-Mormon neighbors, and public meetings were held 
in various places to give expression to the popular indignation. At 
such a meeting in Warsaw, Hancock County, eighteen miles down 
the river, the following was among the resolutions adopted : — 

" Resolved, that the time, in our opinion, has arrived when the adherents of 
Smith, as a body, should be driven from the surrounding settlements into Nauvoo ; 
that the Prophet and his miscreant adherents should then be demanded at their 
hands, and, if not surrendered, a war of extermination should be waged, to the 
entire destruction, if necessary for our protection, of his adherents." 

Warsaw was considered the most violent anti-Mormon neigh- 
borhood, the Signal newspaper there being especially bitter in 
its attacks ; but the people in all the surrounding country began 
to prepare for "war" in earnest. At Warsaw 150 men were 
mustered in under General Knox, and $1000 was voted for sup- 
plies. In Carthage, Rushville, Green Plains, and many other towns 
in Illinois men began organizing themselves into military compa- 
nies, cannon were ordered from St. Louis, and the near-by places 
in Iowa, as well as some in Missouri, sent word that their aid could 
be counted on. Rumors of all sorts of Mormon outrages were 
circulated, and calls were made for militia, here to protect the 
people against armed Mormon bands, there against Mormon 
thieves. Many farmhouses were deserted by their owners through 
fear, and the steamboats on the river were crowded with women 
and children, who were sent to some safe settlement while the men 
were doing duty in the militia ranks. Many of the alarming re- 
ports were doubtless started by non-Mormons to inflame the public 
feeling against their opponents, others were the natural outgrowth 
of the existing excitement. 

297 



2g8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



On June 17 a committee from Carthage made to Governor Ford 
so urgent a request for the calling out of the militia, that he decided 
to visit the disturbed district and make an investigation on his own 
account. 1 On arriving at Carthage he found a considerable militia 
force already assembled as a posse comitatus, at the call of the con- 
stables. This force, and similar ones in McDonough and Schuyler 
counties, he placed under command of their own officers. Next, 
the governor directed the mayor and council of Nauvoo to send a 
committee to state to him their story of the recent doings. This 
they did, convincing him, by their own account, of the outrageous 
character of the proceedings against the Expositor, He therefore 
arrived at two conclusions : first, that no authority at his command 
should be spared in bringing the Mormon leaders to justice; and, 
second, that this must be done without putting the Mormons in 
danger of an attack by any kind of a mob. He therefore addressed 
the militia force from each county separately, urging on them the 
necessity of acting only within the law, and securing from them 
all a vote pledging their aid to the governor in following a strictly 
legal course, and protecting from violence the Mormon leaders 
when they should be arrested. 

The governor then sent word to Smith that he and his associ- 
ates would be protected if they would surrender, but that arrested 
they should be, even if it took the whole militia force of the state 
to accomplish this. The constable and guards who carried the 
governor's mandate to Nauvoo found the city a military camp. 
Smith had placed it under martial law, assembled the Legion, 
called in all the outlying Mormons, and ordered that no one should 
enter or leave the place without submitting to the strictest inquiry. 
The governor's messengers had no difficulty, however, in gaining 
admission to Smith, who promised that he and the members of the 
Council would accompany the officers to Carthage the next morning 
(June 23) at eight o'clock.' But at that time the accused did not 
appear, and, without any delay or any effort to arrest the men who 
were wanted, the officers returned to Carthage and reported that 
all the accused had fled. 

Whatever had been the intention of Smith when the constable 
first appeared, he and his associates did surrender, as the governor 

1 The story of the events just preceding Joseph Smith's death are taken from Gov- 
ernor Ford's report to the Illinois legislature, and from his " History of Illinois." 



UPRISING OF THE NON-MORMONS 



299 



had expressed a belief that they would do. Statements of the cir- 
cumstances of the surrender were written at the time by H. P. 
Reid and James W. Woods of Iowa, who were employed by the 
Mormons as counsel, and were printed in the Times and Seasons, 
Vol. V, No. 12. Mr. Woods, according to these accounts, arrived 
in Nauvoo on Friday, June 21, and, after an interview with Smith 
and his friends, went to Carthage the next evening to assure Gov- 
ernor Ford that the Nauvoo officers were ready to obey the law. 
There he learned that the constable and his assistants had gone to 
Nauvoo to demand his clients' surrender; but he does not mention 
their return without the prisoners. He must have known, how- 
ever, that the first intention of Smith and the Council was to flee 
from the wrath of their neighbors. The " Life of Brigham Young," 
published by Cannon & Sons, Salt Lake City, 1893, contains this 
statement : — 

" The Prophet hesitated about giving himself up, and started, on the night of 
June 22, with his brother Hyrum, W. Richards, John Taylor, and a few others 
for the Rocky Mountains. He was, however, intercepted by his friends, and 
induced to abandon his project, being chided with cowardice and with deserting 
his people. This was more than he could bear, and so h& returned, saying : i If 
my life is of no value to my friends, it is of no value to myself. We are going 
back to be slaughtered.'" 

It will be remembered that Young, Rigdon, Orson Pratt, and 
many others of the leading men of the church were absent at this 
time, most of them working up Smith's presidential "boom." 
Orson Pratt, who was then in New Hampshire, said afterward, " If 
the Twelve had been here, we would not have seen him given up." 

Woods received from the governor a pledge of protection for 
all who might be arrested, and an assurance that if the Mormons 
would give themselves up at Carthage, on Monday, the 24th, this 
would be accepted as a compliance with the governor's orders. 
He therefore returned to Nauvoo with this message on Sunday 
evening, and the next morning the accused left that place with 
him for Carthage. They soon met Captain Dunn, who, with a 
company of sixty men, was going to Nauvoo with an order from 
the governor for the state arms in the possession of the Legion. 1 
Woods made an agreement with Captain Dunn that the arms 

1 It was stated that on two hours' notice two thousand men appeared, all armed, and 
that they surrendered their arms in compliance with the governor's plans. 



300 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



should be given up by Smith's order, and that his clients should 
place themselves under the captain's protection, and return with 
him to Carthage. The return trip to Nauvoo, and thence to Car- 
thage, was not completed until about midnight. The Mormons 
were not put under restraint that night, but the next morning they 
surrendered themselves to the constable on a charge of riot in 
connection with the destruction of the Expositor plant. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET — HIS CHARACTER 

On Tuesday morning, Joseph and Hyrum Smith were arrested 
again in Carthage, this time on a charge of treason in levying war 
against the state, by declaring martial law in Nauvoo and calling 
out the Legion. In the afternoon of that day all the accused, 
numbering fifteen, appeared before a justice of the peace, and, to 
prevent any increase in the public excitement, gave bonds in the 
sum of $500 each for their appearance at the next term of the Cir- 
cuit Court to answer the charge of riot. 1 It was late in the evening 
when this business was finished, and nothing was said at the time 
about the charge of treason. 

Very soon after their return to the hotel, however, the consta- 
ble who had arrested the Smiths on the new charge appeared with 
a mittimus from the justice of the peace, and, under its authority, 
conveyed them to the county jail. Their counsel immediately 
argued before the governor that this action was illegal, as the 
Smiths had had no hearing on the charge of treason, and the gov- 
ernor went with the lawyers to consult the justice concerning his 
action. The justice explained that he had directed the removal of 
the prisoners to jail because he did not consider them safe in the 
hotel. The governor held that, from the time of their delivery to 
the jailer, they were beyond his jurisdiction and responsibility, but 
he granted a request of their counsel for a military guard about 
the jail. He says, however, that he apprehended neither an attack 
on the building nor an escape of the prisoners, adding that if they 
had escaped, "it would have been the best way of getting rid of 

1 The trial of the survivors resulted in a verdict of acquittal. " The Mormons," says 
Governor Ford, " could have a Mormon jury to be tried by, selected by themselves, and 
the anti-Mormons, by objecting to the sheriff and regular panel, could have one from the 
anti-Mormons. No one could [then] be convicted of any crime in Hancock County." 
— " History of Illinois," p. 369. 

301 



302 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the Mormons," since these leaders would never have dared to 
return to the state, and all their followers would have joined them 
in their place of refuge. 

The militia force in Carthage at that time numbered some 
twelve hundred men, with four hundred or five hundred more per- 
sons under arms in the town. There was great pressure on the 
governor to march this entire force to Nauvoo, ostensibly to search 
for a counterfeiting establishment, in order to overawe the Mor- 
mons by a show of force. The governor consented to this plan, 
and it was arranged that the officers at Carthage and Warsaw 
should meet on June 27 at a point on the Mississippi midway 
between the latter place and Nauvoo. 

Governor Ford was not entirely certain about the safety of the 
prisoners, and he proposed to take them with him in the march to 
Nauvoo, for their protection. But while preparations for this 
march were still under way, trustworthy information reached him 
that, if the militia once entered the Mormon city, its destruction 
would certainly follow, the plan being to accept a shot fired at the 
militia by some one as a signal for a general slaughter and confla- 
gration. He determined to prevent this, not only on humane 
grounds, — " the number of women, inoffensive and young persons, 
and innocent children which must be contained in such a city of 
twelve hundred to fifteen thousand inhabitants " — but because he 
was not certain of the outcome of a conflict in which the Mormons 
would outnumber his militia almost two to one. After a council 
of the militia officers, in which a small majority adhered to the 
original plan, the governor solved the question by summarily dis- 
banding all the state forces under arms, except three companies, 
two of which would continue to guard the jail, and the other would 
accompany the governor on a visit to Nauvoo, where he proposed to 
search for counterfeiters, and to tell the inhabitants that any retali- 
atory measures against the non-Mormons would mean " the destruc- 
tion of their city, and the extermination of their people." 

The jail at Carthage was a stone building, situated at the north- 
western boundary of the village, and near a piece of woods that 
were convenient for concealment. It contained the jailer's apart- 
ments, cells for prisoners, and on the second story a sort of assem- 
bly room. At the governor's suggestion, Joseph and Hyrum were 
allowed the freedom of this larger room, where their friends were 



THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET 



303 



permitted to visit them, without any precautions against the intro- 
duction of weapons or tools for their escape. 

Their guards were selected from the company known as the 
Carthage Grays, Captain Smith, commander. In this choice the 
governor made a mistake which always left him under a charge of 
collusion in the murder of the prisoners. It was not, in the first 
place, necessary to select any Hancock company for this service, 
as he had militia from McDonough County on the ground. All 
the people of Hancock County were in a fever of excitement 
against the Mormons, while the McDonough County militia had 
voted against the march into Nauvoo. Moreover, when the pris- 
oners, after their arrival at Carthage, had been exhibited to the 
McDonough company at the request of the latter, who had never 
seen them, the Grays were so indignant at what they called a tri- 
umphal display, that they refused to obey the officer in command, 
and were for a time in revolt. " Although I knew that this com- 
pany were the enemies of the Smiths," says the governor, "yet I had 
confidence in their loyalty and their integrity, because their cap- 
tain was universally spoken of as a most respectable citizen and 
honorable man." The governor further excused himself for the 
selection because the McDonough company were very anxious to 
return home to attend to their crops, and because, as the prisoners 
were likely to remain in jail all summer, he could not have de- 
tained the men from the other county so long. He presents also 
the curious plea that the frequent appeals made to him direct for 
the extermination or expulsion of the Mormons gave him assur- 
ance that no act of violence would be committed contrary to his 
known opposition, and he observes, "This was a circumstance 
well calculated to conceal from me the secret machinations on 
foot ! " 

In this state of happy confidence the governor set out for Nau- 
voo on the morning of June 27. On the way, one of the officers 
who accompanied him told him that he was apprehensive of an 
attack on the jail because of talk he had heard in Carthage. The 
governor was reluctant to believe that such a thing could occur 
while he was in the Mormon city, exposed to Mormon vengeance, 
but he sent back a squad, with instructions to Captain Smith to see 
that the jail was safely guarded. He had apprehensions of his 
own, however, and on arriving at Nauvoo simply made an address 



304 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



as above outlined, and hurried back to Carthage without even 
looking for counterfeit money. He had not gone more than two 
miles when messengers met him with the news that the Smith 
brothers had been killed in the jail. 

The Warsaw regiment (it is so called in the local histories), 
under command of Colonel Levi Williams, set out on the morning 
of June 27 for the rendezvous on the Mississippi, preparatory 
to the march to Nauvoo. The resolutions adopted in Warsaw and 
the tone of the local press had left no doubt about the feeling of 
the people of that neighborhood toward the Mormons, and fully 
justified the decision of the governor in countermanding the march 
proposed. His unexpected order disbanding the militia reached 
the Warsaw troops when they had advanced about eight miles. 
A decided difference of opinion was expressed regarding it. Some 
of the most violent, including Editor Sharp of the Signal, wanted 
to continue the march to Carthage in order to discuss the situation 
with the other forces there ; the more conservative advised an 
immediate return to Warsaw. Each party followed its own incli- 
nation, those who continued toward Carthage numbering, it is said, 
about two hundred. 

While there is no doubt that the Warsaw regiment furnished 
the men who made the attack on the jail, there is evidence that 
the Carthage Grays were in collusion with them. William N. 
Daniels, in his account of the assault, says that the Warsaw men, 
when within four miles of Carthage, received a note from the 
Grays (which he quotes) telling them of the good opportunity 
presented "to murder the Smiths" in the governor's absence. 
His testimony alone would be almost valueless, but Governor Ford 
confirms it, and Gregg (who holds that the only purpose of the 
mob was to seize the prisoners and run them into Missouri) says 
he is "compelled" to accept the report. According to Governor 
Ford, one of the companies designated as a guard for the jail dis- 
banded and went home, and the other was stationed by its captain 
150 yards from the building, leaving only a sergeant and eight 
men at the jail itself. " A communication," he adds, " was soon 
established between the conspirators and the company, and it was 
arranged that the guards should have their guns charged with 
blank cartridges, and fire at the assailants when they attempted to 
enter the jail." 



THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET 305 

Both Willard Richards and John Taylor were in the larger 
room with the Smith brothers when the attack was made (other 
visitors having recently left), and both gave detailed accounts of 
the shooting, Richards soon afterward, in a statement printed in 
the Neighbor and the Times and Seasons under the title "Two 
Minutes in Gaol," and Taylor in his " Martyrdom of Joseph 
Smith." 1 They differ only in minor particulars. 

All in the room were sitting in their shirt sleeves except 
Richards, when they saw a number of men, with blackened faces, 
advancing around the corner of the jail toward the stairway. The 
door leading from the room to the stairs was hurriedly closed, and, 
as it was without a lock, Hyrum Smith and Richards placed their 
shoulders against it. Finding their entrance opposed, the assail- 
ants fired a shot through the door (Richards says they fired a 
volley up the stairway), which caused Hyrum and Richards to 
leap back. While Hyrum was retreating across the room, with 
his face to the door, a second shot fired through the door struck 
him by the side of the nose, and at the same moment another ball, 
fired through the window at the other side of the room, entered 
his back, and, passing through his body, was stopped by the watch 
in his vest pocket, smashing the works. He fell on his back 
exclaiming, " I am a dead man," and did not speak again. 

One of their callers had left a six-shooting pistol with the 
prisoners, and, when Joseph saw his brother shot, he advanced with 
this weapon to the door, and opening it a few inches, snapped each 
barrel toward the men on the other side. Three barrels missed 
fire, but each of the three that exploded seems to have wounded a 
man ; accounts differ as to the seriousness of their injuries. While 
Joseph was firing, Taylor stood by him armed with a stout hickory 
stick, and Richards was on his other side holding a cane. As 
soon as Joseph's firing, which had checked the assailants for a 
moment, ceased, the latter stuck their weapons through the partly 
opened doorway, and fired into the room. Taylor tried to parry 
the guns with his cudgel. " That's right, Brother Taylor, parry 
them off as well as you can," said the prophet, and these are the 
last words he is remembered to have spoken. The assailants 
hesitated to enter the room, perhaps not knowing what weapons 
the Mormons had, and Taylor concluded to take his chances of a 

1 To be found in Burton's " City of the Saints." 

X 



3o6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



leap through an open window opposite the door, and some twenty- 
five feet from the ground. But as he was about to jump out, a 
ball struck him in the thigh, depriving him of all power of motion. 
He fell inside the window, and as soon as he recovered power to 
move, crawled under a bed which stood in one corner of the room. 
The men in the hallway continued to thrust in their guns and fire, 
and Richards kept trying to knock aside the muzzles with his 
cane. Taylor in this way, before he reached the bed, received 
three more balls, one below the left knee, one in the left arm, and 
another in the left hip. 

Almost as soon as Taylor fell, the prophet made a dash for 
the window. As he was part way out, two balls fired through the 
doorway struck him, and one from outside the building entered his 
right breast. Richards says : "He fell outward, exclaiming 1 O 
Lord, my God.' As his feet went out of the window, my head 
went in, the balls whistling all around. At this instant the cry 
was raised, ' He's leaped the window,' and the mob on the stairs 
and in the entry ran out. I withdrew from the window, thinking 
it of no use to leap out on a hundred bayonets, then around Gen- 
eral Smith's body. Not satisfied with this, I again reached my 
head out of the window and watched some seconds, to see if there 
were any signs of life, regardless of my own, determined to see 
the end of him I loved. Being fully satisfied that he was dead, 
with a hundred men near the body and more coming round the 
corner of the gaol, and expecting a return to our room, I rushed 
toward the prison door at the head of the stairs." Finding the 
inner doors of the jail unlocked, Richards dragged Taylor into a 
cell and covered him with an old mattress. Both expected a re- 
turn of the mob, but the lynchers disappeared as soon as they satis- 
fied themselves that the prophet was dead. Richards was not 
injured at all, although his large size made him an ample target. 

Most Mormon accounts of Smith's death say that, after he fell, 
the body was set up against a well curb in the yard and riddled 
with balls. Taylor mentions this report, but Richards, who specifi- 
cally says that he saw the prophet die, does not. Governor Ford's 
account says that Smith was only stunned by the fall and was shot 
in the yard. Perhaps the original authority for this version was a 
lad named William N. Daniels, who accompanied the Warsaw men 
to Carthage, and, after the shooting, went to Nauvoo and had his 



THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET 



307 



story published by the Mormons in pamphlet form, with two 
extravagant illustrations, in which one of the assailants is repre- 
sented as approaching Smith with a knife to cut off his head. 1 

The bodies of the two brothers were removed to the hotel in 
Carthage, and were taken the next day to Nauvoo, arriving there 
about three o'clock in the afternoon. They were met by practi- 
cally the entire population, and a procession made up of the City 
Council, the generals of the Legion with their staffs, the Legion 
and the citizens generally, all under command of the city marshal, 
escorted them to the Nauvoo Mansion, where addresses were made 
by Dr. Richards, W. W. Phelps, the lawyers Woods and Reid, and 
Colonel Markham. The utmost grief was shown by the Mormons, 
who seemed stunned by the blow. 

The burial followed, but the bodies did not occupy the graves. 
Stenhouse is authority for the statement that, fearing a grave rob- 
bery (which in fact occurred the next night), the coffins were filled 
with stones, and the bodies were buried secretly beneath the unfin- 
ished Temple. Mistrustful that even this concealment would not 
be sufficient, they were soon taken up and reburied under the 
brick wall back of the Mansion House. 2 

Brigham Young said at the conference in the Temple on Octo- 
ber 8, 1845, "We will petition Sister Emma, in the name of 
Israel's God, to let us deposit the remains of Joseph according as 
he has commanded us, and if she will not consent to it, our gar- 
ments are clear." She did not consent. For the following state- 
ment about the future disposition of the bodies I am indebted to 

1 A detailed account of the murder of the Smiths, and events connected with it, was 
contributed to the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1869, by John Hay. This is accepted 
by Kennedy as written by "one whose opportunities for information were excellent, 
whose fairness cannot be questioned, and whose ability to distinguish the true from the 
false is of the highest order." H. H. Bancroft, whose tone is always pro-Mormon, 
alludes to this article as " simply a tissue of falsehoods." In reply to a note of inquiry 
Secretary Hay wrote to the author, under date of November 17, 1900 : "I relied more 
upon my memory and contemporary newspapers for my facts than on certified docu- 
ments. I will not take my oath to everything the article contains, but I think in 
the main it is correct." This article says that Joseph Smith was severely wounded 
before he ran to the window, "and half leaped, half fell into the jail yard below. 
With his last dying energies he gathered himself up, and leaned in a sitting posture 
against the rude stone well curb. His stricken condition, his vague wandering glances, 
excited no pity in the mob thirsting for his life. A squad of Missourians, who were 
standing by the fence, leveled their pieces at him, and, before they could see him again 
for the smoke they made, Joe Smith was dead." This is not an account of an eye-witness. 

- Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 174. 



3o8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the grandson of the prophet, Mr. Frederick Madison Smith, one 
of the editors of the Saints' Herald (Reorganized Church) at 
Lamoni, Iowa, dated December 15, 1900: — 

" The burial place of the brothers Joseph and Hyrum has always remained 
a secret, being known only to a very few of the immediate family. In fact, 
unless it has lately been revealed to others, the exact spot is known only to my 
father and his brother. Others who knew the secret are now silent in death. 
The reasons for the secrecy were that it was feared that, if the burial place was 
known at the time, there might have been an inclination on the part of the ene- 
mies of those men to desecrate their bodies and graves. There is not now, and 
probably has not been for years, any danger of such desecration, and the only 
reason I can see for still keeping it a secret is the natural disinclination on the 
part of the family to talk about such matters. 

" However, I have been on the ground with my father when I knew I was 
standing within a few feet of where the remains were lying, and it is known to 
many about where that spot is. It is a short distance from the Nauvoo House, 
on the bank of the Mississippi. The lot is still owned by the family, the title 
being in my father's name. There is not, that I know, any intention of ever 
taking the bodies to Far West or Independence, Missouri. The chances are that 
their resting places will never be disturbed other than to erect on the spot a 
monument. In fact, a movement is now under way to raise the means to do that. 
A monument fund is being subscribed to by the members of the church. The 
monument would have been erected by the family, but it is not financially able to 
do it." 

In the October following, indictments were found against Colo- 
nel Williams of the Warsaw regiment, State Senator J. C. Davis, 
Editor Sharp, and six others, including three who were said to 
have been wounded by Smith's pistol shots, but the sheriff did not 
succeed in making any arrests. In the May following some of the 
accused appeared for trial. A struck jury was obtained, but, in 
the existing state of public feeling, an acquittal was a foregone 
conclusion. The guards at the jail would identify no one, and 
Daniels, the pamphlet writer, and another leading witness for the 
prosecution gave contradictory accounts. 

But the prophet, according to Mormon recitals, did not go 
unavenged. Lieutenant Worrell, who commanded the detachment 
of the guards at the jail, was shot not long after, as we shall see. 
Murray McConnell, who represented the governor in the prose- 
cution of the alleged lynchers, was assassinated twenty-four years 
later. P. P. Pratt gives an account of the fate of other " perse- 
cutors." The arm of one Townsend, who was wounded by Joe's 



THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET 



309 



pistol, continued to rot until it was taken off, and then would not 
heal. A colonel of the Missouri forces, who died in Sacramento 
in 1849, "was eaten with worms, a large, black-headed kind of 
maggot, seeming a half-pint at a time." Another Missourian's 
"face and jaw on one side literally rotted, and half his face actu- 
ally fell off." 1 

It is dhvcult for the most fair-minded critic to find in the char- 
acter of Joseph Smith anything to commend, except an abundance 
of good-nature which made him personally popular with the body 
of his followers. He has been credited with power as a leader, 
and it was certainly little less than marvellous that he could main- 
tain his leadership after his business failure in Ohio, and the utter 
break-down of his revealed promises concerning a Zion in Mis- 
souri. The explanation of this success is to be found in the logi- 
cally impregnable position of his character as a prophet, so long as 
the church itself retained its organization, and in the kind of 
people who were gathered into his fold. If it was not true that 
he received the golden plates from an angel ; if it was not true 
that he translated them with divine assistance ; if it was not true 
that he received from on high the " revelations " vouchsafed for 
the guidance of the church, — then there was no new Bible, no new 
revelation, no Mormon church. If Smith was pulled down, the 
whole church structure must crumble with him. Lee, referring 
to the days in Missouri, says, " Every Mormon, if true to his 
faith, believed as freely in Joseph Smith and his holy character as 
they did that God existed." 2 Some of the Mormons who knew 
Smith and his career in Missouri and Illinois were so convinced 
of the ridiculousness of his claims that they proposed, after the 
gathering in Utah, to drop him entirely. Proof of this, and of 
Brigham Young's realization of the impossibility of doing so, is 
found in Young's remarks at the conference which received the 
public announcement of the "revelation" concerning polygamy. 
Referring to the suggestion that had been made, " Don't mention 
Joseph Smith, never mention the Book of Mormon and Zion, and 
all the people will follow you," Young boldly declared: "What I 
have received from the Lord, I have received by Joseph Smith ; 
he was the instrument made use of. If I drop him, I must drop 
these principles. They have not been revealed, declared, or 

1 Pratt's " Autobiography," pp. 475-476. 2 " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 76. 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



explained by any other man since the days of the apostles." This 
view is accepted by the Mormons in Utah to-day. 

If it seems still more surprising that Smith's associates, placed 
so little restraint on his business schemes, it must be remembered 
that none of his early colaborers — Rigdon, Harris, Cowdery, and 
the rest — was a better business man than he, and that he absolutely 
brooked no interference. It was Smith who decided every impor- 
tant step, as, for instance, the land purchases in and around 
Nauvoo ; and men who would let him originate were compelled to 
let him carry out. We have seen how useless better business men 
like the Laws found it to argue with him on any practical ques- 
tion. The length to which he dared go in discountenancing any 
restriction, even regarding his moral ideas, is illustrated in an inci- 
dent related in his autobiography. 1 At a service on Sunday, Novem- 
ber 7, 1 84 1, in Nauvoo, an elder named Clark ventured to reprove 
the brethren for their lack of sanctity, enjoining them to solemnity 
and temperance. " I reproved him," says the prophet, " as phari- 
saical and hypocritical, and not edifying the people, and showed 
the Saints what temperance, faith, virtue, charity, and truth were. 
I charged the Saints not to follow the example of the adversary 
[non-Mormons] in accusing the brethren, and said, * If you do not 
accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no 
accuser, you will enter heaven ; if you will follow the revelations 
and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you 
into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will 
not accuse you. If you will throw a cloak of charity over my sins, 
I will over yours — for charity covereth a multitude of sins. What 
many people call sin is not sin. I do many things to break down 
superstition.' " A congregation that would accept such teaching 
without a protest, would follow their leader in any direction which 
he chose to indicate. 

Smith was the farthest possible from being what Spinoza has 
been called, " a God-intoxicated man." Real reverence for sacred 
things did not enter into his mental equipment. A story illustrat- 
ing his lack of reverence for what he called " long-faced " brethren 
was told by J. M. Grant in Salt Lake City. A Baptist minister, 
who talked much of " my dee-e-ar brethren," called on Smith in 
Nauvoo, and, after conversing with him for a short time, stood up 



1 Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 743. 



THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET 



311 



before Smith and asked in solemn tones if it were possible that he 
saw a man who was a prophet and who had conversed with the 
Saviour. " ' Yes,' says the prophet, ' 1 don't know but you do ; 
would you not like to wrestle with me ? ' After he had whirled 
around a few times, like a duck shot in the head, he concluded 
that his piety had been awfully shocked." 1 

In manhood Smith was about six feet tall, weighing something 
over two hundred pounds. From among a number of descriptions 
of him by visitors at Nauvoo, the following may be cited. Josiah 
Quincy, describing his arrival at what he calls " the tavern " in 
Nauvoo, in May, 1844, gives this impression of the prophet : " Pre- 
eminent among the stragglers at the door stood a man of command- 
ing appearance, clad in the costume of a journeyman carpenter 
when about his work. He was a hearty, athletic fellow, with blue 
eyes standing prominently out on his light complexion, a long nose, 
and a retreating forehead. He wore striped pantaloons, a linen 
jacket which had not lately seen the wash-tub, and a beard of three 
days' growth. A fine-looking man, is what the passer-by would 
instinctively have murmured upon meeting the remarkable indi- 
vidual who had fashioned the mould which was to shape the feelings 
of so many thousands of his fellow-mortals." 2 

The Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., who had an interview with the 
prophet at Nauvoo, in 1842, thus describes him : " He is a coarse, 
plebeian, sensual person in aspect, and his countenance exhibits a 
curious mixture of the knave and the clown. His hands are large 
and fat, and on one of his fingers he wears a massive gold ring, 
upon which I saw an inscription. His eyes appear deficient in that 
open and straightforward expression which often characterizes an 
honest man." 

John Taylor had death-casts taken of the faces of Joseph and 
Hyrum after their murder. By the aid of these and of sketches 
of the brothers which he had secured while they were living, he 
had busts of them made by a modeller in Europe named Gahagan, 
and these were offered to the Saints throughout the world, for a 
price, of course. 3 

The proofs already cited of Smith's immorality are convincing. 




1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 67. 

2 " Figures of the Past," p. 380. 

8 Millennial Star, November I, 1850. 



312 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Caswall names a number of occasions on which, he charges, the 
prophet was intoxicated after his settlement in Nauvoo. He relates 
that on one of these, when Smith was asked how it happened that 
a prophet of the Lord could get drunk, Smith answered that it was 
necessary that he should do so to prevent the Saints from worship- 
ping him as a god ! 1 

No Mormon ever concedes that proof of Smith's personal failings 
affects his character as a prophet. A Mormon doctor, with whom 
Caswall argued at Nauvoo, said that Smith might be a murderer 
and an adulterer, and yet be a true prophet. He cited St. Peter 
as saying that, in his time, David had not yet ascended into heaven 
(Acts ii. 34) ; David was in hell as a murderer ; so if Smith was 
"as infamous as David, and even denied his own revelations, that 
would not affect the revelations which God had given him." 



1 "Mormonism and its Author," 1852. 



CHAPTER XV 



AFTER SMITH'S DEATH — RIGDON'S LAST DAYS 

The murder of the Smiths caused a panic, not among the 
Mormons, but among the other inhabitants of Hancock County, 
who looked for summary vengeance at the hands of the prophet's 
followers, with their famous Legion to support them. The state 
militia having been disbanded, the people considered themselves 
without protection, and Governor Ford shared their apprehension. 
Carthage was at once almost depopulated, the people fleeing in 
wagons, on horseback, and on foot, and most of the citizens of 
Warsaw placed the river between them and their enemies. " I was 
sensible," says Governor Ford, " that my command was at an end ; 
that my destruction was meditated as well as the Mormons', and 
that I could not reasonably confide longer in one party or the other." 
The panic-stricken executive therefore set out at once for Quincy, 
forty miles from the scene of the murder. 

From that city the governor issued a statement to the people 
of the state, reciting the events leading up to the recent tragedy, 
and, under date of June 29, ordered the enlistment of as many men 
as possible in the militia of Adams, Marquette, Pike, Brown, Schuy- 
ler, Morgan, Scott, Cass, Fulton, and McDonough counties, and the 
regiments of General Stapp's brigade, for a twelve days' campaign. 
The independent companies of all sorts, in the same counties, were 
also told to hold themselves in readiness, and the federal govern- 
ment was asked to station a force of five hundred men from the 
regular army in Hancock County. This last request was not com- 
plied with. The governor then sent Colonel Fellows and Captain 
Jonas to Nauvoo by the first boat, to find out the intentions of the 
Mormons as well as those of the people of Warsaw. 

Meanwhile the voice of the Mormon leaders was for peace. 
Willard Richards, John Taylor, and Samuel H. Smith united in a 

313 



314 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



letter (written in the first person singular by Richards), on the 
night of the murders, addressed to the prophet's widow, General 
Deming (commanding at Carthage), and others, which said : — 

" The people of the county are greatly excited, and fear the Mormons will 
come out and take vengeance. I have pledged my word the Mormons will stay 
at home as soon as they can be informed, and no violence will be on their part. 
And say to my brethren in Nauvoo, in the name of the Lord, be still, be patient ; 
only let such friends as choose come here to see the bodies. Mr. Taylor's 
wounds are dressed and not serious. I am sound." 

This quieting advice was heeded without even a protest, and 
after the funeral of the victims the Mormons voted unanimously to 
depend on the law for retribution. 

While things temporal in Nauvoo remained quiet, there were 
deep feeling and great uncertainty concerning the future of the 
church. The First Presidency had consisted, since the action of 
the conference at Far West in 1837, of Joseph and Hyrum Smith 
and Sidney Rigdon. Two of these were now dead. Did this 
leave Rigdon as the natural head, did Smith's son inherit the sue- 
cessorship, or did the supreme power rest with the Twelve 
Apostles ? Discussion of this matter brought out many plans, 
including a general reorganization of the church, and the appoint- 
ment of a trustee or a president. Rigdon had been sent to Pitts- 
burg to build up a church, 1 and Brigham Young was electioneering 
in New Hampshire for Smith. Accordingly, Phelps, Richards, 
and Taylor, on July 1, issued a brief statement to the church at 
large, asking all to await the assembling of the Twelve. 

Rigdon arrived in Nauvoo on August 3, and preached the next 
day in the grove. He said the Lord had shown him a vision, and 
that there must be a "guardian" appointed to "build the church 
up to Joseph" as he had begun it. Cannon's account, in the 
"Juvenile Instructor," says that at a meeting at John Taylor's the 
next day Rigdon declared that the church was in confusion and 
must have a head, and he wanted a special meeting called to 
choose a " guardian." On the evening of August 6, Young, H. C. 
Kimball, Lyman Wight, Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde, and Wilford 
Woodruff arrived from the East. A meeting of the Twelve 

1 John Taylor so stated at Rigdon's coming trial. This, perhaps, contradicts the 
statement in the Cannons' " Life of Brigham Young " that Rigdon had gone there " to 
escape the turmoils of Nauvoo." 



AFTER SMITH'S DEATH — RIGDON'S LAST DAYS 315 



Apostles, the High Council, and high priests was called for 
August 7, at 4 p.m., which Rigdon attended. He declared that in 
a vision at Pittsburg it had been shown to him that he had been 
ordained a spokesman to Joseph, and that he must see that the 
church was governed in a proper manner. " I propose," said he, 
11 to be a guardian of the people. In this I have discharged my 
duty and done what God has commanded me, and the people can 
please themselves, whether they accept me or not." 

A special meeting of the church was held on the morning of 
August 8. Rigdon had previously addressed a gathering in the 
grove, but he had not been winning adherents. As we have seen, 
he had alienated himself from the men who had accepted Smith's 
new social doctrines, and a plan which he proposed, that the 
church should move to Pennsylvania, appealed neither to the good 
judgment nor the pecuniary interests of those to whom it was pre- 
sented. Young made an address at this meeting which so wrought 
up his hearers that they declared that they saw the mantle of 
Joseph fall upon him. When he asked, " Do you want a guardian, 
a prophet, a spokesman, or what do you want ? " not a hand went 
up. Young then went on to give his own view of the situation ; 
his argument pointed to a single result — the demolition of Rig- 
don's claim and the establishment of the supreme authority of the 
Twelve, of whom Young himself was the head. W. W. Phelps, 
P. P. Pratt, and others sustained Young's view. Before a vote was 
taken, according to the minutes quoted, Rigdon refused to have 
his name voted on as "spokesman" or guardian. The meeting 
then voted unanimously in favor of " supporting the Twelve in 
their calling," and also that the Twelve should appoint two Bishops 
to act as trustees for the church, and that the completion of the 
Temple should be pushed. 1 

On August 15 Young, as president of the Twelve, issued an 
epistle to the church in all the world in which he said : — 

•'•'Let no man presume for a moment that his [the Prophet's] place will be 
filled by another: for, re)}ieniber he stands in his own place, and always will, and 
the Twelve Apostles of this dispensation stand in their own place, and always 
will, both in time and eternity, to minister, preside, and regulate the affairs of the 
whole church. " 

1 For minutes of this church meeting, see Times and Seasons, Vol. V, p. 637. For 
a full account of the happenings at Nauvoo, from August 3 to 8, see " Historical Record" 
(Mormon), Vol. VIII, pp. 785-800. 



316 THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 

The epistle told the Saints also that " it is not wisdom for the 
Saints to have anything to do with politics, voting, or president- 
making at present" 

Rigdon remained in Nauvoo after the decision of the church in 
favor of the Twelve, preaching as of old, declaring that he was with 
the. brethren heart and soul, and urging the completion of the 
Temple. But Young regarded him as a rival, and determined to 
put their strength to a test. Accordingly, on Tuesday, September 
3, he had a notice printed in the Neighbor directing Rigdon to appear 
on the following Sunday for trial before a High Council presided 
over by Bishop Whitney. Rigdon did not attend this trial, not 
only because he was not well, but because, after a conference with 
his friends, he decided that the case against him was made up and 
that his presence would do no good. 1 

When the High Council met, Young expressed a disbelief in 
Rigdon's reported illness. He said that, having heard that Rigdon 
had ordained men to be prophets, priests, and kings, he and Orson 
Hyde had obtained from Rigdon a confession that he had per- 
formed the act of ordination, and that he believed he held author- 
ity above any man in the church. That evening eight of the 
Twelve had visited him at his house, and, getting confirmation of his 
position, had sent a committee to him to demand his license. 
This he had refused to surrender, saying, " I did not receive it 
from you, neither shall I give it up to you." Then came the order 
for his trial. 

Orson Hyde presented the case against Rigdon in detail. He 
declared that, when they demanded the surrender of his license, 
Rigdon threatened to turn traitor, " His own language was, ' Inas- 
much as you have demanded my license, I shall feel it my duty to 
publish all your secret meetings, and all the history of the secret 
works of this church, in the public journals.' 2 He intimated that 

1 For the minutes of this High Council, see Times and Seasons, Vol. V, pp. 647-655, 
660-667. 

2 Lee thus explains one of these "secret works": "The same winter [1843] ne 
[Smith] organized what was called 'The Council of Fifty.' This was a confidential 
organization. This Council was designated as a lawmaking department, but no record 
was ever kept of its doings, or, if kept, they were burned at the close of each meeting. 
Whenever anything of importance was on foot, this Council was called to deliberate 
upon it. The Council was called the ' Living Constitution.' Joseph said that no legis- 
lature could enact laws that would meet every case, or attain the ends of justice in all 
respects." — " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 173. 



AFTER SMITH'S DEATH — RIGDON'S LAST DAYS 



317 



it would bring a mob upon us." Parley P. Pratt, the member of 
Rigdon's old church in Ohio, who, according to his own account, 
first called Rigdon's attention to the Mormon Bible, next spoke 
against his old friend. 

After Amasa Lyman, John Taylor, and H. C. Kimball had 
spoken against Rigdon, Brigham Young took the floor again, and 
in reply to the threat that Rigdon would expose the secrets of the 
church, he denounced him in the following terms : — 

" Brother Sidney says, if we go to opposing him, he will tell our secrets. But 
I would say, i O, don't, brother Sidney ! don't tell our secrets — O, don't ! ' But if 
he tells our secrets, we will tell his. Tit for tat. He has had long visions in 
Pittsburg, revealing to him wonderful iniquity among the Saints. Now, if he 
knows of so much iniquity, and has got such wonderful power, why don't he purge 
it out ? He professes to have the keys of David. Wonderful power and revela- 
tions! And he will publish our iniquity. O, dear brother Sidney, don't publish 
our iniquity ! Now don't ! If Sidney Rigdon undertakes to publish all our 
secrets, as he says, he will lie the first jump he takes. If he knew of all our 
iniquity why did he not publish it sooner ? If there is so much iniquity in the 
church as you talk of, Elder Rigdon, and you have known of it so long, you are a 
black-hearted wretch because you have not published it sooner. If there is not 
this iniquity, you are a black-hearted wretch for endeavoring to bring a mob upon 
us, to murder innocent men> women and children. Any man that says the 
Twelve are bogus-makers, or adulterers, or wicked men is a liar ; and all who say 
such things shall have the fate of liars, where there is weeping and gnashing of 
teeth. Who is there who has seen us do such things ? No man. The spirit 
that I am of tramples such slanderous wickedness under my feet." 1 

At this point the proceedings had a rather startling interrup- 
tion. William Marks, president of the Stake at Nauvoo, and a 
member of the High Council (who, as we have seen, had rebelled 
against the doctrine of polygamy when it was presented to him) 
took the floor in Rigdon's defence. But it was in vain. 

W. W. Phelps moved that Rigdon " be cut off from the church, 
and delivered over to the bufferings of Satan until he repents." 
The vote by the Council in favor of this motion was unanimous, 
but when it was offered to the church, some ten members voted 

1 William Small, in a letter to the Pittsburg Messenger and Advocate, p. 70, relates 
that when he met Rigdon on his arrival at St. Louis by boat after this trial, Orson 
Hyde, who was also a passenger and thought Small was with the Twelve, addressed 
Small, asking him to intercede with Rigdon not to publish the secret acts of the church, 
and telling him that if Rigdon would come back and stand equal with the Twelve and 
counsel with them, he would pledge himself, in behalf of the Twelve, that all they had 
said against Rigdon would be revoked. 



3i8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



against it. Phelps at once moved that all who had voted to follow 
Rigdon should be suspended until they could be tried by the High 
Council, and this was agreed to unanimously, with an amendment 
including the words, "or shall hereafter be found advocating his 
principles." After compelling President Marks, by formal motion, 
to acknowledge his satisfaction with the action of the church, the 
meeting adjourned. 

Rigdon's next steps certainly gave substance to his brother's 
theory that his mind was unbalanced, the family having noticed 
his peculiarities from the time he was thrown from a horse, when 
a boy. 1 He soon returned to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where his 
first step was to " resuscitate " the Messenger and Advocate, which 
had died at Kirtland. In a signed article in the first number he 
showed that he then intended " to contend for the same doctrines, 
order of government, and discipline maintained by that paper 
when first published at Kirtland," in other words, to uphold the 
Mormon church as he had known it, with himself at its head. But 
his old desire for original leadership got the better of him, and 
after a conference of the membership he had gathered around 
him, held in Pittsburg in April, 1845, at which he was voted 
" First President, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Translator," he 
issued an address to the public in which he declared that his Church 
of Christ was neither a branch nor connection of the church at 
Nauvoo, and that it received members of the Church of Latter- 
Day Saints only after baptism and repentance. 2 In an article in 
his organ, on July 15, 1845, he made assertions like these: "The 
Church of Christ and the Mormons are so widely different in their 
respective beliefs that they are of necessity opposed to one another, 
as far as religion is concerned. . . . There is scarcely one point of 
similarity. . . . The Church of Christ has obtained a distinctive 
character." 

Rigdon told the April conference that he had one unceasing 
desire, namely, to know whether God would accept their work. At 
the suggestion of the spirit, he had taken some of the brethren 
into a room in his house that morning, and had consecrated them. 
What there occurred he thus described : — 

" After the washing and anointing, and the patriarchal seal, as the Lord had 
directed me, we kneeled and in solemn prayer asked God to accept the work we 

1 Baptist Witness, March I, 1875. 2 Pittsburg Messenger and Advocate, p. 220. 



AFTER SMITH'S DEATH — RIGDON'S LAST DAYS 319 

had done. During the time of prayer there appeared over our heads in the room 
a ray of light forming a hollow square, inside of which stood a company of 
heavenly messengers, each with a banner in his hand, with their eyes looking 
downward upon us. their countenance expressive of the deep interest they felt in 
what was passing on the earth. There also appeared heavenly messengers on 
horseback, with crowns upon their heads, and plumes floating in the air, dressed 
in glorious attire, until, like Elisha. we cried in our hearts, 'The chariots of 
Israel and the horsemen thereof." Even my little son of fourteen years of age 
saw the vision, and gazed with great astonishment, saying that he thought his 
imagination was running away with him. After which we arose and lifted our 
hands to heaven in holy convocation to God ; at which time was shown an angel 
in heaven registering the acceptance of our work, and the decree of the Great 
God that the kingdom is ours and we shall prevail. 11 

While the conference was in session, Pittsburg was visited by a 
disastrous conflagration. Rigdon prayed for the sufferers by the 
fire and asked God to check it. " During the prayer " (this quota- 
tion is from the official report of the conference in the Messenger 
and Advocate, p. 186), "an escort of the heavenly messengers 
that had hovered around us during the time of this conference 
were seen leaving the room ; the course of the wind was instantly 
changed, and the violence of the flames was stayed." 

Rigdon's attempt to build up a new church in the East was a 
failure. Urgent appeals in its behalf in his periodical were made 
in vain. The people addressed could not be cajoled with his 
stories of revelations and miraculous visions, which both the secu- 
lar and religious press held up to ridicule, and he had no system 
of foreign immigration to supply ignorant recruits. He soon after 
took up his residence in Friendship, Allegheny County, New York, 
where he died at the residence of his son-in-law, Earl Win gate, on 
July 14, 1876. In an obituary sketch of him the Standard of that 
place said : — 

" He was approached by the messengers of young Joseph Smith of Piano, 111., 
but he refused to converse or answer any communication which in any way 
would bring him into notice in connection with the Mormon church of to-day. 
It was his daily custom to visit the post-office, get the daily paper, read and con- 
verse upon the chief topics of the day. He often engaged in a friendly dispute 
with the local ministers, and always came out first best on New Testament doc- 
trinal matters. Patriarchal in appearance, and kindly in address, he was often 
approached by citizens and strangers with a view to obtaining something of the 
unrecorded mysteries of his life : but citizen, stranger and persistent reporter all 
alike failed in eliciting any information as to his knowledge of the Mormon im- 
posture, the motives of his early life, or the religious faith, fears and hopes of his 



320 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



declining years. Once or twice he spoke excitedly, in terms of scorn, of those 
who attributed to him the manufacture of the Mormon Bible ; but beyond this, 
nothing. His library was small ; he left no manuscripts, and refused persistently 
to have a picture of himself taken. It can only be said that he was a compound 
of ability, versatility, honesty, duplicity, and mystery." 

One person succeeded in drawing out from Rigdon in his later 
years a few words on his relations with the Mormon church. 
This was Charles L. Woodward, a New York bookseller, who 
some years ago made an important collection of Mormon litera- 
ture. While making this collection he sent an inquiry to Rigdon, 
and received a reply, dated May 25, 1873. After apologizing for 
his handwriting on account of his age and paralysis, the letter 
says : — 

" We know nothing about the people called Mormons now. 1 The Lord noti- 
fied us that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were going to be 
destroyed, and for us to leave. We did so, and the Smiths were killed a few 
days after we started. Since that, I have had no connection with any of the 
people who staid and built up to themselves churches, and chose to themselves 
leaders such as they chose, and then framed their own religion. 

" The Church of Latter-Day Saints had three books that they acknowledged 
as Canonical, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Commandments. For 
the existence of that church there had to be a revelater, one who received the 
word of the Lord ; a spokesman, one inspired of God to expound all revelation, 
so that the church might all be of one faith. Without these two men the Church 
of Latter-Day Saints could not exist. This order ceased to exist, being over- 
come by the violence of armed men, by whom houses were beaten down by can- 
non which the assalents had furnished themselves with. 

"Thus ended the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it 
never can move again till the Lord inspires men and women to believe it. All 
the societies and assemblies of men collected together since then is not the 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, nor never can there be such a 
church till the Lord moves it by his own power, as he did the first. 

" Should you fall in with one who was of the Church [of] Christ, though now 
of advanced age, you will find one deep red in the revelations of heaven. But 
many of them are dead, and many of them have turned away, so there are few left. 

"I have a manuscript paper in my possession, written with my own hands 
while in my 80th. year, but I am to poor to do anything with it ; and there- 

1 The statement has been published that, after Young had established himself in 
Utah, he received from Rigdon an intimation that the latter would be willing to join him. 
I could obtain no confirmation of this in Salt Lake City. On the contrary, a leading 
member of the church informed me that Young invited Rigdon to join the Mormons in 
Utah, but that Rigdon did not accept the invitation. 



AFTER SMITH'S DEATH — RIGDON'S LAST DAYS 32 1 



fore it must remain where it [is] . During the great fight of affliction I have had, 
I have lost all my property, but I struggle along in poverty to which I am con- 
signed. I have finished all I feel necessary to write. 

" Respectfully, 

" Sidney Rigdon." 1 

Rigdon's affirmation of his belief in Smith as a prophet and the 
Mormon Bible when he returned to Pennsylvania was proclaimed 
by the Mormons as proof that there was no truth in the Spauld- 
ing manuscript story, but it carries no weight as such evidence. 
Rigdon burned all his old theological bridges behind him when he 
entered into partnership with Smith, and his entire course after his 
return to Pittsburg only adds to the proof that he was the origi- 
nator of the Mormon Bible, and that his object in writing it was to 
enable him to be the head of a new church. Surely no one would 
accept as proof of the divinity of the Mormon Bible any declara- 
tion by the man who told the story of angel visits in Pittsburg. 

1 The original of this letter is in the collection of Mormon literature in the New 
York Public Library. An effort to learn from Rigdon's descendants something about 
the manuscript paper referred to by him has failed. 



Y 



CHAPTER XVI 



RIVALRIES OVER THE SUCCESSION 

Rigdon was not alone in contending for the successorship to 
Joseph Smith as the head of the Mormon church. The prophet's 
family defended vigorously the claim of his eldest son to be his 
successor. 1 Lee says that the prophet had bestowed the right of 
succession on his eldest son by divination, and that " it was then 
[after his father's death] understood among the Saints that young 
Joseph was to succeed his father, and that right justly belonged to 
him," when he should be old enough. Lee says further that he 
heard the prophet's mother plead with Brigham Young, in Nauvoo, 
in 1845, with tears, not to rob young Joseph of his birthright, and 
that Young conceded the son's claim, but warned her to keep 
quiet on the subject, because "you are only laying the knife to the 
throat of the child. If it is known that he is the rightful successor 
of his father, the enemy of the Priesthood wjJJ seek his life." 2 
Strang says, "Any one who was in Nauvoo % 'i 1846 0^1847 
knows that the majority of those who started to the Western 
exodus, started in this hope," that the younger Joseph would take 
his father's place. 3 

At the last day of the Conference held in the N Temple in 
Nauvoo, in October, 1845, Mother Smith, at her request, was per- 
mitted to make an address. She went over the history of her 
family, and asked for an expression of opinion whether she was 
"a mother in Israel." One universal "yes" rang out. She said 
she hoped all her children would accompany the Saints to the 
West, and if they did she would go ; but she wanted her bones 
brought back to be buried beside her husband and children. Brig- 

1 The prophet's sons were Joseph, born November 6, 1832; Fred G. W., June 20, 
1836; Alexander, June 2, 1838; Don Carlos, June 13, 1840; and David H., November 
18, 1844. 

2 " Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 155, 161. 

3 Strang's " Prophetic Controversy," p. 4. 

322 



RIVALRIES OVER THE SUCCESSION 



323 



ham Young then said: "We have extended the helping hand to 
Mother Smith. She has the best carriage in the city, and, while 
she lives, shall ride in it when and where she pleases." 1 Mother 
Smith died in the summer of 1856 in Nauvoo, where she spent the 
last two years of her life with Joseph's first wife, Emma, who had 
married a Major Bideman. 

Emma caused the Twelve a good deal of anxiety after her hus- 
band's death. Pratt describes a council held by her, Marks, and 
others to endeavor to appoint a trustee-in-trust for the whole church, 
the necessity of which she vigorously urged. Pratt opposed the 
idea, and nothing was done about it. 2 Soon after her husband's 
death the Times and Seasons noticed a report that she was prepar- 
ing, with the assistance of one of the prophet's Iowa lawyers, an 
exposure of his " revelations," etc. James Arlington Bennett, who 
visited Nauvoo after the prophet's death, acting as correspondent 
for the New York Sun, gave in one of his letters the text of a 
statement which he said Emma had written, to this effect, "I 
never for a moment believed in what my husband called his appa- 
ritions or revelations, as I thought him laboring under a diseased 
mind ; yet they may all be true, as a prophet is seldom without 
credence or honor, excepting in his own family or country." Mrs. 
Smith, in a letter to the Sun, dated December 30, 1845, pronounced 
this letter a forge cy, while Bennett maintained that he knew that 
it was genuine. 3 

The organization — or, as they define it, the reorganization — 
of a church by those who claim that the mantle of Joseph Smith, 
Jr., descended on his sons, had its practical inception at a confer- 
ence at Beloit, Wisconsin, in June, 1852, at which resolutions were 
adopted disclaiming all fellowship with Young and other claim- 
ants to the leadership of the church, declaring that the suc- 
cessor of the prophet "must of necessity be the seed of Joseph 
Smith, Jr." At a conference held in Amboy, Illinois, in April, 
i860, Joseph Smith's son and namesake was placed at the head 
of this church, a position which he still holds. The Reorganized 
Church has been twice pronounced by United States courts to be 
the one founded under the administration of the prophet. Its 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. VII, p. 23. 2 Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 373. 

3 Emma Smith is described as " a tall, dark, masculine looking woman " in " Sketches 
and Anecdotes of the Old Settlers." 



324 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



teachings may be called pure Mormonism, free from the doctrines 
engrafted in after years. It holds that " the doctrines of a plu- 
rality and community of wives are heresies, and are opposed to 
the law of God." Its declaration of faith declares its belief in 
baptism by immersion, the same kind of organization (apostles, 
prophets, pastors, etc.) that existed in the primitive church, revela- 
tions by God to man from time to time " until the end of time," and 
in " the powers and gifts of the everlasting gospel, viz., the gift 
of faith, discerning of spirits, prophesy, revelation, healing, visions, 
tongues, and the interpretation of tongues." No one ever heard 
of this church having any trouble with its Gentile neighbors. 

The Reorganized Church moved its headquarters to Lamoni, 
Iowa, in 1 88 1. It has a present membership of 45,381, according 
to the report of the General Church Recorder to the conference of 
April, 1901. Of these members, 6964 were foreign, — 2867 in 
Canada, 1080 in England, and 1955 in the Society Islands. The 
largest membership in this country is 7952 in Iowa, 6280 in Mis- 
souri, and 3564 m Michigan. Utah reported 685 members. 

The most determined claimant to the successorship of Smith 
was James J. Strang. Born at Scipio, New York, in 181 3, Strang 
was admitted to the bar when a young man, and moved to Wis- 
consin. Some of the Mormons who went into the north woods to 
get lumber for the Nauvoo Temple planted a Stake near La Crosse, 
under Lyman Wight, in 1842. Trouble ensued very soon with 
their non-Mormon neighbors, and after a rather brief career the 
supporters of this Stake moved away quietly one night. Strang 
heard of the Mormon doctrines from these settlers, accepted their 
truth, and visiting Nauvoo, was baptized in February, 1844, made 
an elder, and authorized to plant another Stake in Wisconsin. He 
first attempted to found a city called Voree, where a temple cover- 
ing more than two acres of ground, with twelve towers, was 
begun. 

When Smith was killed, Strang at once came forward with a 
declaration that the prophet's revelations indicated that, at the 
close of his own prophetic office, another would be called to the 
place by revelation, and ordained at the hands of angels ; that not 
only had he (Strang) been so ordained, but that Smith had writ- 
ten to him in June, 1844, predicting the end of his own work, and 
telling Strang that he was to gather the people in a Zion in Wis- 



RIVALRIES OVER THE SUCCESSION 



325 



consin. Strang began at once giving out revelations, describing 
visions, and announcing that an angel had shown him " plates of 
the sealed record," and given him the Urim and Thummim to 
translate them. 

Although Strang's whole scheme was a very clumsy imitation 
of Smith's, he drew a considerable number of followers to his Wis- 
consin branch, where he published a newspaper called the Voree 
Herald, and issued pamphlets in defence of his position, and a 
" Book of the Law," explaining his doctrinal teachings, which 
included polygamy. He had five wives. His Herald printed a 
statement, signed by the prophet's mother and his brother William, 
his three married sisters, and the husband of one of them, certify- 
ing that "the Smith family do believe in the appointment of J. J. 
Strang." Among other Mormons of note who gave in their alle- 
giance to Strang were John E. Page, one of the Twelve (whom 
Phelps had called "the sun-dial"), General John C. Bennett, and 
Martin Harris. 

Strang gave the Mormon leaders considerable anxiety, espe- 
cially when he sent missionaries to England to work up his cause. 
The Millennial Star of November 1 5, 1846, devoted a good deal of 
space to the subject. The article began : — 

"Sketches of Notorious Characters: James J. Strang, successor of 
Sidney Rigdon, Judius Iscariot, Cain & Co., Envoy Extraordinary and a Minister 
Plenipotentiary to His Most Gracious Majesty Lucifer I., assisted by his allied 
cotemporary advisers, John C. Bennett, William Smith, G. T. Adams, and John 
E. Page, Secretary of Legation." 

Strang announced a revelation which declared that he was to 
be " King in Zion," and his coronation took place on July 8, 1850, 
when he was crowned with a metal crown having a cluster of stars 
on its front. Burnt offerings were included in the programme. 

This ceremony took place on Beaver Island, in Lake Superior, 
where in 1847 Strang had gathered his people and assumed both 
temporal and spiritual authority. Both of these claims got him 
into trouble. His non-Mormon neighbors, fishermen and lumber- 
men, accused the Mormons of wholesale thefts ; his assumption of 
regal authority brought him before the United States court, 
(where he was not held); and his advocacy of the practice of 
polygamy by his followers aroused insubordination, and on June 



326 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



15, 1856, he was shot by two members of his flock whom he had 
offended, and who were at once regarded as heroes by the people 
of the mainland. A mob secured a vessel, visited Beaver Island, 
where Strang had maintained a sort of fort, and compelled the 
Mormon inhabitants to embark immediately, with what little prop- 
erty they could gather up. They were landed at different places, 
most of them in Milwaukee. Thus ended Strang's Kingdom. 1 

Another leader who " set up for himself " after Smith's death 
was Lyman Wight, who had been one of the Twelve in Missouri, 
and was arrested with Smith there. Wight did not lay claim to 
the position of President of the church, but he resented what he 
called Brigham Young's usurpation. In 1845 he led a small com- 
pany of his followers to Texas, where they first settled on the 
Colorado River, near Austin. They made successive moves from 
that place into Gillespie, Burnett, and Bandera counties. He died 
near San Antonio in March, 1858. The fact that Wight entered 
into the practice of polygamy almost as soon as he reached Texas, 
and still escaped any conflict with his non-Mormon neighbors, 
affords proof of his good character in other respects. The Gal- 
veston News, in its notice of his death, said, " Mr. Wight first came 
to Texas in November, 1845, and has been with his colony on 
our extreme frontier ever since, moving still farther west as set- 
tlements formed around him, thus always being the pioneer of 
advancing civilization, affording protection against the Indians." 

After Wight's death his people scattered. A majority of them 
became identified with the Reorganized Church, a few gave in their 
allegiance to the organization in Utah, and others abandoned 
Mormonism entirely. 

1 " A Moses of the Mormons," by Henry E. Legler, Parkman Club Publications, 
Nos. 15-16, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 11, 1897; "An American Kingdom of Mor- 
mons," Magazine of Western History, Cleveland, Ohio, April, 1 886. 



CHAPTER XVII 



BRIGHAM YOUNG 

Brigham Young, the man who had succeeded in expelling 
Rigdon and establishing his own position as head of the church, 
was born in Whitingham, Windham County, Vermont, on June I, 
1 80 1. The precise locality of his birth in that town is in dispute. 
His father, a native of Massachusetts, is said to have served under 
Washington during the Revolutionary W T ar. The family consisted 
of eleven children, five sons and six daughters, of whom Brigham 
was the ninth. The Youngs moved to Whitingham in January, 
1 80 1. In his address at the centennial celebration of that town in 
18S0, Clark Jillson said, " Henry Goodnow, Esq., of this town 
says that Brigham Young's father came here the poorest man that 
ever had been in town; that he never owned a cow, horse, or any 
land, but was a basket maker." Mormon accounts represent the 
elder Young as having been a farmer. 

His circumstances permitted him to give his children very little 
education, and, when sixteen years old, Brigham seems to have 
started out to make his own living, working as a carpenter, painter, 
and glazier, as jobs were offered. He was living in Aurelius, 
Cayuga County, New York, in 1824, working at his trade, and 
there, in October of that year, he married his first wife, Miriam 
Works. In 1829 they moved to Mendon, Monroe County, New 
York. 

Joseph Smith's brother, in the following year, left a copy of 
the Mormon Bible at the house of Brigham's brother Phineas in 
Mendon, and there Brigham first saw it. Occasional preaching 
by Mormon elders made the new faith a subject of conversation 
in the neighborhood, and Phineas was an early convert. Brigham 
stated in a sermon in Salt Lake City, on August 8, 1852, that he 
examined the new Bible for two years before deciding to receive 
it. He was baptized into the Mormon church on April 14, 1832. 

327 



328 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



His wife, who also embraced the faith, died in September of that 
year, leaving him two daughters. 

Young married his second wife, Mary A. Angel, in Kirtland 
on March 31, 1834. His application for a marriage license is still 
on file among the records of the Probate Court at Chardon, now 
the shire town of Geauga County, Ohio, and his signature is a proof 
of his illiterateness, showing that he did not know how to spell his 
own baptismal name, spelling it " Bricham." 

Young began preaching and baptizing in the neighborhood, 
having at once been made an elder, and in the autumn of 1832, 
after Smith's second return from Missouri, he visited Kirtland and 
first saw the prophet. Mormon accounts of this visit say that 
Young " spoke in tongues," and that Smith pronounced his lan- 
guage " the pure Adamic," and then predicted that he would in time 
preside over the church. It is not at all improbable that Joseph 
did not hesitate to interpret Brigham's "tongues," but at that time 
he was thinking of everything else but a successor to himself. 

Young, with his brother Joseph, went from Kirtland on foot to 
Canada, where he preached and baptized, and whence he brought 
back a company of converts. He worked at his trade in Kirtland 
(preaching as called upon) from that time until 1834, when he 
accompanied the "Army of Zion " to Missouri, being one of the 
captains of tens. Returning with the prophet, he was employed 
on the Temple and other church buildings for the next three 
years (superintending the painting of the Temple), when he was 
not engaged in other church work. Having been made one of 
the original Quorum of Twelve in 1835, ne devoted a good deal 
of time in the warmer months holding conferences in New York 
State and New England. 

When open opposition to Smith manifested itself in Kirtland, 
Young was one of his firmest defenders. He attended a meeting 
in an upper room of the Temple, the object of which was to depose 
Smith and place David Whitmer in the Presidency, leading in the 
debate, and declaring that he " knew that Joseph was a prophet." 
According to his own statement, he learned of a plot to kill Smith 
as he was returning from Michigan in a stage-coach, and met the 
coach with a horse and buggy, and drove the prophet to Kirtland 
unharmed. When Smith found it necessary to flee from Ohio, 
Young followed him to Missouri with his family, arriving at Far 



BRIGHAM YOUNG 



329 



West on March 14, 1838. He sailed to Liverpool on a mission in 
1840, remaining there a little more than a year. 

In all the discords of the church that occurred during Smith's 
life, Young never incurred the prophet's displeasure, and there is 
no evidence that he ever attempted to obtain any more power or 
honor for himself than was voluntarily accorded to him. He gave 
practical assistance to the refugees from Missouri as they arrived 
at Quincy, but there is no record of his prominence in the discus- 
sions there over the future plans for the church. The prophet's 
liking for him is shown in a revelation dated at Nauvoo, July 9, 
1 84 1 (Sec. 126), which said: — 

" Dear and beloved brother Brigham Young, verily thus saith the Lord unto 
you, my servant Brigham, it is no more required at your hand to leave your 
family as in times past, for your offering is acceptable to me ; I have seen your 
labor and toil in journeyings for my name. I therefore command you to 
send my word abroad, and take special care of your family from this time, hence- 
forth, and forever. Amen.'' 1 

The apostasy of Marsh and the death of Patton had left Young 
the President of the Twelve, and that was the position in which he 
found himself at the time of Smith's death. 

One of the first subjects which Young had to decide concerned 
"revelations." Did they cease with Smith's death, or, if not, who 
would receive and publish them ? Young made a statement on 
this subject at the church conference held at Nauvoo on October 6 
of that year, which indicated his own uncertainty on the subject, 
and which concluded as follows, " Every member has the right of 
receiving revelations for themselves, both male and female." As 
if conscious that all this was not very clear, he closed by making a 
declaration which was very characteristic of his future policy : " If 
you don't know whose right it is to give revelations, I will tell you. 
It is I." 1 We shall see that the discontinuance of written "revela- 
tions " was a cause of complaint during all of Young's subsequent 
career in Utah, but he never yielded to the demand for them. 

At the conference in Nauvoo Young selected eighty-five men 
from the Quorum of high priests to preside over branches of the 
church in all the congressional districts of the United States ; and 
he took pains to explain to them that they were not to stay six 
months and then return, but " to go and settle down where they 

1 Times and Seasons, Vol. V, pp. 682-683. 



330 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



can take their families and tarry until the Temple is built, and then 
come and get their endowments, and return to their families and 
build up a Stake as large as this." Young's policy evidently was, 
while not imitating Rigdon's plan to move the church bodily to the 
East, to build up big branches all over the country, with a view to 
such control of affairs, temporal and spiritual, as could be attained. 
" If the people will let us alone," he said to this same conference, 
"we will convert the world." 

Many members did not look on the Twelve as that head of the 
church which Smith's revelations had decreed. It was argued by 
those who upheld Rigdon and Strang, and by some who remained 
with the Twelve, that the " revelations " still required a First Presi- 
dency. The Twelve allowed this question to remain unsettled un- 
til the brethren were gathered at Winter Quarters, Iowa, after their 
expulsion from Nauvoo, and Young had returned from his first 
trip to Salt Lake valley. The matter was taken up at a council 
at Orson Hyde's house on December 5, 1847, an< ^ ft was decided, 
but not without some opposing views, to reorganize the church 
according to the original plan, with a First Presidency and Patri- 
arch. In accordance with this plan, a conference was held in the 
log tabernacle at Winter Quarters on December 24, and Young 
was elected President and John Smith Patriarch. Young selected 
Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards to be his counsellors, and 
the action of this conference was confirmed in Salt Lake City the 
following October. Young wrote immediately after his election, 
" This is one of the happiest days of my life." 

The vacancies in the Twelve caused by these promotions, and 
by Wight's apostasy, were not filled until February 12, 1849, in 
Salt Lake City, when Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, C. C. Rich, 
and F. D. Richards were chosen. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



RENEWED TROUBLE FOR THE MORMONS — "THE 
BURNINGS" 

The death of the prophet did not bring peace with their out- 
side neighbors to the Mormon church. Indeed, the causes of 
enmity were too varied and radical to be removed by any changes 
in the leadership, so long as the brethren remained where they 
were. 

In the winter of 1 844-1 845 charges of stealing made against the 
Mormons by their neighbors became more frequent. Governor 
Ford, in his message to the legislature, pronounced such reports 
exaggerated, but it probably does the governor no injustice to say 
that he now had his eye on the Mormon vote. The non-Mormons 
in Hancock and the surrounding counties held meetings and 
appointed committees to obtain accurate information about the 
thefts, and the old complaints of the uselessness of tracing stolen 
goods to Nauvoo were revived. The Mormons vigorously denied 
these charges through formal action taken by the Nauvoo City 
Council and a citizens' meeting, alleging that in many cases " out- 
landish men " had visited the city at night to scatter counterfeit 
money and deposit stolen goods, the responsibility for which was 
laid on Mormon shoulders. 

It is not at all improbable that many a theft in western Illinois 
in those days that was charged to Mormons had other authors ; 
but testimony regarding the dishonesty of many members of the 
church, such as we have seen presented in Smith's day, was still 
available. Thus, Young, in one of his addresses to the conference 
assembled at Nauvoo about two months after Smith's death, made 
this statement : " Elders who go to borrowing horses or money, 
and running away with it, will be cut off from the church without 
any ceremony. They will not have as much lenity as heretofore." 1 

1 Times and Seasons, Vol. V, p. 696. 
331 



332 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



A lady who published a sketch of her travels in 1845 through 
Illinois and Iowa wrote : — 

" We now entered a part of the country laid waste by the desperadoes among 
the Mormons. Whole farms were deserted, fields were still covered with wheat 
unreaped, and cornfields stood ungathered, the inhabitants having fled to a dis- 
tant part of the country. . . . Friends gave us a good deal of information about 
the doings of these Saints at Nauvoo — said that often, when their orchards were 
full of fruit, some sixteen of these monsters would come with bowie knives and 
drive the owners into their houses while they stripped their trees of the fruit. If 
these rogues wanted cattle they would drive off the cattle of the Gentiles." 1 

A trial concerning the title to some land in Adams County in 
that year brought out the fact that there existed in the Mormon 
church what was called a " Oneness." Five persons would asso- 
ciate and select one of their members as a guardian ; then, if any 
of the property they jointly owned was levied on, they would 
show that one or more of the other five was the real owner. 

While the Mormons continued to send abroad glowing pictures 
of the prosperity of Nauvoo, less prejudiced accounts gave a very 
different view. The latter pointed out that the immigrants, who 
supplied the only source of prosperity, had expended most of their 
capital on houses and lots, that building operations had declined, 
because houses could be bought cheaper than they could be built, 
and that mechanics had been forced to seek employment in St. 
Louis. Published reports that large numbers of the poor in the 
city were dependent on charity received confirmation in a letter 
published in the Millennial Star of October 1, 1845, which said 
that on a fast-day proclaimed by Young, when the poor were to be 
remembered, "people were seen trotting in all directions to the 
Bishops of the different wards" with their contributions. 

We have seen that the gathering of the Saints at Nauvoo was 
an idea of Joseph Smith, and was undertaken against the judg- 
ment of some of the wiser members of the church. The plan, so 
far as its business features were concerned, was on a par with 
the other business enterprises that the prophet had fathered. 
There was nothing to sustain a population of 15,000 persons, arti- 
ficially collected, in this frontier settlement, and that disaster must 
have resulted from the experiment, even without the hostile oppo- 
sition of their neighbors, is evident from the fact that Nauvoo to- 

1 "Book for the Married and Single," by Ann Archbold. 



RENEWED TROUBLE FOR THE MORMONS 333 



day, when fifty years have settled up the surrounding district and 
brought it in better communication with the world, is a village of 
only 1 32 1 inhabitants (census of 1900). 

Politics were not eliminated from the causes of trouble by 
Smith's death. Not only was 1844 a presidential year, but the 
citizens of Hancock County were to vote for a member of Con- 
gress, two members of the legislature, and a sheriff. Governor 
Ford urgently advised the Mormons not to vote at all, as a meas- 
ure of peace ; but political feeling ran very high, and the Demo- 
crats got the Mormon vote for President, and with the same 
assistance elected as sheriff General Deming, the officer left by 
Governor Ford in command of the militia at Carthage when the 
Smiths were killed, as well as two members of the legislature who 
had voted against the repeal of the Nauvoo city charter. 

The tone of the Mormons toward their non-Mormon neighbors 
seemed to become more defiant at this time than ever. The repeal 
of the Nauvoo charter, in January, 1845, unloosened their tongues. 
Their newspaper, the Neighbor, declared that the legislature " had 
no more right to repeal the charter than the United States would 
have to abrogate and make void the constitution of the state, or than 
Great Britain would have to abolish the constitution of the United 
States — and the man that says differently is a coward, a traitor to 
his own rights, and a tyrant; no odds what Blackstone, Kent or 
Story may have written to make themselves and their names popu- 
lar, to the contrary." 

The Neighbor, in the same article, thus defined its view of the 
situation, after the repeal : — 

" Nor is it less legal for an insulted individual or community to resist oppres- 
sion. For this reason, until the blood of Joseph and Hyrum Smith has been 
atoned for by hanging, shooting or slaying in some manner every person engaged 
in that cowardly, mean assassination, no Latter-Day Saint should give himself up 
to the law ; for the presumption is that they will murder him in the same man- 
ner. . . . Neither should civil process come into Nauvoo till the United States^ 
by a vigorous course, causes the State of Missouri and the State of Illinois to re- 
dress every man that has suffered the loss of lands, goods or anything else by 
expulsion. ... If any man is bound to maintain the law, it is for the benefit he 
may derive from it. . . . Well, our charter is repealed ; the murderers of the 
Smiths are running at large, and if the Mormons should wish to imitate their fore- 
fathers and fulfil the Scriptures by making it 'hard to kick against the pricks' by 
wearing cast steel pikes about four or five inches long in their boots and shoes 
to kick with, what's the harm ? " 



334 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Such utterances, which found imitation in the addresses of the 
leaders, and were echoed in the columns of Pratt's Prophet in New 
York, made it easy for their hostile neighbors to believe that the 
Mormons considered themselves beyond the reach of any law but 
their own. Some daring murders committed across the river in 
Iowa in the spring of 1845 afforded confirmation to the non-Mor- 
mons of their belief in church-instigated crimes of this character, 
and in the existence and activity of the Danite organization. The 
Mormon authorities had denied that there were organized Danites 
at Nauvoo, but the weight of testimony is against the denial. 
Gregg, a resident of the locality when the Mormons dwelt there, 
gives a fair idea of the accepted view of the Danites at that 
time : — 

" They were bound together with oaths of the most solemn character, and 
the punishment of traitors to the order was death. John A. MurrelPs Band of 
Pirates, who flourished at one time near Jackson, Tennessee, and up and down the 
Mississippi River above New Orleans, was never so terrible as the Danite Band, 
for the latter was a powerful organization, and was above the law. The band 
made threats, and they were not idle threats. They went about on horseback, 
under cover of darkness, disguised in long white robes with red girdles. Their 
faces were covered with masks to conceal their identity. 1 ' 1 

Phineas Wilcox, a young man of good reputation, went to 
Nauvoo on September 16, 1845, to get some wheat ground, and 
while there disappeared completely. The inquiry made concern- 
ing him led his friends to believe that he was suspected of being a 
Gentile spy, and was quietly put out of the way. 2 

William Smith, the prophet's brother, contributed to the testi- 
mony against the Mormon leaders. Returning from the East, 
where he had been living for three years when Joseph was killed, 
he was warmly welcomed by the Mormon press, and elevated to 
the position of Patriarch, and, as such, issued a sort of advertise- 
ment of his patriarchal wares in the Times and Seasons 5 and 
Neighbor, inviting those in want of blessings to call at his resi- 
dence. William was not a man of tact, and it required but a little 
time for him to arouse the jealousy of the leaders, the result of 
which was a notice in the Times and Seasons of November 1, 

1 " History of Hancock County." See also " Sketches and Anecdotes of the Old 
Settlers," p. 34. 

2 See Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 158— 1 59, for accounts of methods of dis- 
posing of objectionable persons at Nauvoo. 8 Vol. VI, p. 904. 



RENEWED TROUBLE FOR THE MORMONS 335 

1845, that he had been "cut off and left in the hands of God." 
But William was not a man to remain quiet even in such a retreat, 
and he soon afterward issued to the Saints throughout the world 
" a proclamation and faithful warning," which filled eight and a 
half columns of the Warsaw Signal of October 29, 1845, m which, 
"in all meekness of spirit, and without anger or malice" (William 
possessed most of the family traits), he accused Young of instigat- 
ing murders, and spoke of him in this way : — 

" It is my firm and sincere conviction that, since the murder of my two 
brothers, usurpation, and anarchy, and spiritual wickedness in high places have 
crept into the church, with the cognizance and acquiescence of those whose 
solemn duty it was to guardedly watch against such a state of things. Under 
the reign of one whom I may call a Pontius Pilate, under the reign, I say, of this 
Brigham Young, no greater tyrant ever existed since the days of Nerol He has 
no other justification than ignorance to cover the most cruel acts — acts disgrace- 
ful to any one bearing the stamp of humanity ; and this being has associated 
around him men, bound by oaths and covenants, who are reckless enough to 
commit almost any crime, or fulfil any command that their self-crowned head 
might give them. 11 

William was, of course, welcomed as a witness by the non- 
Mormons. He soon after went to St. Louis, and while there 
received a letter from Orson Hyde, which called his proclamation 
"a cruel thrust," but urged him to return, pledging that they 
would not harm him. William did not accept the invitation, but 
settled in Illinois, became a respected citizen, and in later years 
was elected to the legislature. When invited to join the Reor- 
ganized Church by his nephew Joseph, he declined, saying, " I am 
not in sympathy, very strongly, with any of the present organized 
bands of Mormons, your own not excepted." 

By the spring of 1845 tne Mormons were deserted even by 
their Democratic allies, some three hundred of whom in Hancock 
County issued an address denying that the opposition to them was 
principally Whig, and declaring that it had arisen from compul- 
sion and in self-defence. Governor Ford, anxious to be rid of his 
troublesome constituents, sent a confidential letter to Brigham 
Young, dated April 8, 1845, saying, " If you can get off by your- 
selves you may enjoy peace," and suggesting California as open- 
ing " a field for the prettiest enterprise that has been undertaken 
in modern times." 

An era of the most disgraceful outrages that marked any of 



336 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the conflicts between the Mormons and their opponents east of the 
Rocky Mountains began in Hancock County on the night of Sep- 
tember 9, when a schoolhouse in Green Plain, south of Warsaw, 
in which the anti-Mormons were holding a meeting, was fired 
upon. The Mormons always claimed that this was a sham attack, 
made by the anti-Mormons to give an excuse for open hostilities, 
and probabilities favor this view. Straightway ensued what were 
known as the " burnings." A band of men, numbering from one 
hundred to two hundred, and coming mostly from Warsaw, began 
burning the houses, outbuildings, and grain stacks of Mormons all 
over the southwest part of the county. The owners were given 
time to remove their effects, and were ordered to make haste to 
Nauvoo, and in this way the country region was rapidly rid of 
Mormon settlers. 1 

The sheriff of the county at that time was J. B. Backenstos, 
who, Ford says, went to Hancock County from Sangamon, a 
fraudulent debtor, and whose brother married a niece of the 
Prophet Joseph. 2 He had been elected to the legislature the year 
before, and had there so openly espoused the Mormon cause — 
opposing the repeal of the Nauvoo charter — that his constituents 
proposed to drive him from the county when he returned home. 
Backenstos at once took up the cause of the Mormons, issued 
proclamation after proclamation, 3 all breathing the utmost hostility 
to the Mormon assailants, and calling on the citizens to aid him as 
a posse in maintaining order. 

A sheriff of different character might have secured the help 
that was certainly his due on such an occasion, but no non-Mormon 
would respond to a call by Backenstos. An occurrence incidental 
to these disturbances now added to the public feeling. On Sep- 
tember 1 6, Lieutenant Worrell, who had been in command of the 
guard at the jail when the Smith brothers were killed, was shot dead 
while riding with two companions from Carthage to Warsaw. His 
death was charged to Backenstos and to O. P. Rockwell, 4 the man 
accused of the attempted assassination of Governor Boggs, and 

1 Gregg's " History of Hancock County," p. 374. 

2 Ford's " History of Illinois," pp. 407-408. 

3 For the text of five of these proclamations, see Millennial Star, Vol. VI. 

4 " Who was the actual guilty party may never be known. We have lately been 
informed from Salt Lake that Rockwell did the deed, under order of the sheriff, which 
is probably the case." — Gregg, " History of Hancock County," p. 341. 



RENEWED TROUBLE FOR THE MORMONS 337 



both were afterward put on trial for it, but were acquitted. 
The sheriff now turned to the Nauvoo Legion for recruits, and 
in his third proclamation he announced that he then had a posse 
of upward of two thousand " well-armed men " and two thousand 
more ready to respond to his call. He marched in different 
directions with this force, visiting Carthage, where he placed a 
number of citizens under arrest and issued his Proclamation No. 4, 
in which he characterized the Carthage Grays as " a band of the 
most infamous and villanous scoundrels that ever infested any 
community." 

" During the ascendency of the sheriff and the absence of the 
anti-Mormons from their homes," said Governor Ford, 1 "the 
people who had been burnt out of their houses assembled at 
Nauvoo, from whence, with many others, they sallied forth and 
ravaged the country, stealing and plundering whatever was con- 
venient to carry or drive away." Thus it seems that the gov- 
ernor had changed his opinion about the honesty of the Mormons. 
To remedy the chaotic condition of affairs in the county, Governor 
Ford went to Jacksonville, Morgan County, where, in a conference, 
it was decided that Judge Stephen A. Douglas, General J. J. Hardin, 
Attorney General T. A. McDougal, and Major W. B. Warren should 
go to Hancock County with such forces as could be raised, to put 
an end to the lawlessness. When the sheriff heard of this, he pro- 
nounced the governor's proclamation directing the movement a 
forgery, and said, in his own Proclamation No. 5, "I hope no 
armed men will come into Hancock County under such circum- 
stances. I shall regard them in the character of a mob, and shall 
treat them accordingly." 

The sheriff labored under a mistake. The steps now taken 
resulted, not in a demonstration of his authority, but in the final 
expulsion of all the Mormons from Illinois and Iowa. 



1 Ford's " History of Illinois," p. 410. 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE EXPULSION OF THE MORMONS 

General Hardin announced the coming of his force, which 
numbered about four hundred men, in a proclamation addressed 
" To the Citizens of Hancock County," dated September 27. He 
called attention to the lawless acts of the last two years by both 
parties, characterizing the recent burning of houses as " acts which 
disgrace your county, and are a stigma to the state, the nation, and 
the age." His force would simply see that the laws were obeyed, 
without taking part with either*side. He forbade the assembling 
of any armed force of more than four men while his troops remained 
in the county, urged the citizens to attend to their ordinary busi- 
ness, and directed officers having warrants for arrests in connection 
with the recent disturbances to let the attorney general decide 
whether they needed the assistance of troops. 

But the citizens were in no mood for anything like a restoration 
of the recent order of things, or for any compromise. The War- 
saw Signal of September 17 had appealed to the non-Mormons of 
the neighboring counties to come to the rescue of Hancock, and 
the citizens of these counties now began to hold meetings which 
adopted resolutions declaring that the Mormons " must go," and 
that they would not permit them to settle in any of the counties 
interested. The most important of these meetings, held at Quincy, 
resulted in the appointment of a committee of seven to visit Nauvoo, 
and see what arrangements could be made with the Mormons re- 
garding their removal from the state. Notwithstanding their defi- 
ant utterances, the Mormon leaders had for some time realized that 
their position in Illinois was untenable. That Smith himself under- 
stood this before his death is shown by the following entry in his 
diary : — 

"Feb. 20, 1844. I instructed the Twelve Apostles to send out a delegation, 
and investigate the locations of California and Oregon, and hunt out a good loca- 

338 



THE EXPULSION OF THE MORMONS 



339 



tion where we can remove to after the Temple is completed, and where we can 
build a city in a day, and have a government of our own, get up into the moun- 
tains, where the devil cannot dig us out, and live in a healthy climate where we 
can live as old as we have a mind to. 11 1 

The Mormon reply to the Quincy committee was given under 
date of September 24 in the form of a proclamation signed by 
President Brigham Young. 2 In a long preamble it asserted the 
desire of the Mormons " to live in peace with all men, so far as we 
can, without sacrificing the right to worship God according to the 
dictates of our own consciences " ; recited their previous expulsion 
from their homes, and the unfriendly view taken of their " views 
and principles " by many of the people of Illinois, finally announc- 
ing that they proposed to leave that country in the spring " for 
some point so remote that there will not need to be a difficulty 
with the people and ourselves." The agreement to depart was, 
however, conditioned on the following stipulations : that the citi- 
zens would help them to sell or rent their properties, to get means 
to assist the widows, the fatherless, and the destitute to move with 
the rest; that "all men will let us alone with their vexatious law- 
suits " ; that cash, dry goods, oxen, cattle, horses, wagons, etc., be 
given in exchange for Mormon property, the exchanges to be con- 
ducted by a committee of both parties ; and that they be subjected 
to no more house burnings nor other depredations while they 
remained. 

The adjourned meeting at Quincy received the report of its 
committee on September 26, and voted to accept the proposal of 
the Mormons to move in the spring, but stated explicitly, " We do 
not intend to bring ourselves under any obligation to purchase 
their property, nor to furnish purchasers for the same ; but we will 
in no way hinder or obstruct them in their efforts to sell, and will 
expect them to dispose of their property and remove at the time 
appointed." To manifest their sympathy with the unoffending 
poor of Nauvoo, a committee of twenty was appointed to receive 
subscriptions for their aid. The resignation of Sheriff Backenstos 
was called for, and the judge of that circuit was advised to hold no 
court in Hancock County that year. 

The outcome of the meetings in the different counties was a 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 819. 

2 For text, see Millennial Star, Vol. VI, p. 187. 



340 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



convention which met in Carthage on October i and 2, and at 
which nine counties (Hancock not included) were represented. 
This convention adopted resolutions setting forth the inability of 
non-Mormons to secure justice at the hands of juries under Mor- 
mon influence, declaring that the only settlement of the troubles 
could be through the removal of the Mormons from the state, and 
repudiating " the impudent assertion, so often and so constantly put 
forth by the Mormons, that they are persecuted for righteousness' 
sake." The counties were advised to form a military organization, 
and the Mormons were warned that their opponents " solemnly 
pledge ourselves to be ready to act as the occasion may require." 

Meanwhile, the commissioners appointed by Governor Ford 
had been in negotiation with the Mormon authorities, and on Octo- 
ber i they, too, asked the latter to submit their intentions in writ- 
ing. This they did the same day. Their reply, signed by Brigham 
Young, President, and Willard Richards, Clerk, 1 referred the com- 
mission to their response to the Quincy committee, and added that 
they had begun arrangements to remove from the county before 
the recent disturbances, one thousand families, including the 
heads of the church, being determined to start in the spring, with- 
out regard to any sacrifice of their property ; that the whole church 
desired to go with them, and would do so if the necessary means 
could be secured by sales of their possessions, but that they wished 
it " distinctly understood that, although we may not find purchasers 
for our property, we will not sacrifice it or give it away, or suffer 
it illegally to be wrested from us." To this the commissioners on 
October 3 sent a reply, informing the Mormons that their proposi- 
tion seemed to be acquiesced in by the citizens of all the counties 
interested, who would permit them to depart in peace the next 
spring without further violence. They closed as follows : — 

" After what has been said and written by yourselves, it will be confidently 
expected by us and the whole community, that you will remove from the state 
with your whole church, in the manner you have agreed in your statement to us. 
Should you not do so, we are satisfied, however much we may deprecate violence 
and bloodshed, that violent measures will be resorted to, to compel your removal, 
which will result in most disastrous consequences to yourselves and your oppo- 
nents, and that the end will be your expulsion from the state. We think that 
steps should be taken by you to make it apparent that you are actually preparing 
to remove in the spring. 

1 Text in Millennial Star, Vol. VI, p. 190. 



THE EXPULSION OF THE MORMONS 



341 



" By carrying out, in good faith, your proposition to remove, as submitted to 
us, we think you should be, and will be, permitted to depart peaceably next spring 
for your destination, west of the Rocky Mountains. For the purpose of main- 
taining law and order in this county, the commanding general purposes to leave 
an armed force in this county which will be sufficient for that purpose, and which 
will remain so long as the governor deems it necessary. And for the purpose of 
preventing the use of such force for vexatious or improper objects, we will recom- 
mend the governor of the state to send some competent legal officer to remain 
here, and have the power of deciding what process shall be executed by said 
military force. 

" We recommend to you to place every possible restraint in your power over 
the members of your church, to prevent them from committing acts of aggression 
or retaliation on any citizens of the state, as a contrary course may, and most 
probably will, bring about a collision which will subvert all efforts to maintain the 
peace in this county ; and we propose making a similar request of your oppo- 
nents in this and the surrounding counties. 

" With many wishes that you may find that peace and prosperity in the land 
of your destination which you desire, we have the honor to subscribe ourselves, 

"John J. Hardin, W. B. Warren. 
S. A. Douglas, J. A. McDougal." 

On the following day these commissioners made official an- 
nouncement of the result of their negotiations, " to the anti-Mor- 
mon citizens of Hancock and the surrounding counties." They 
expressed their belief in the sincerity of the Mormon promises ; ad- 
vised that the non-Mormons be satisfied with obtaining what was 
practicable, even if some of their demands could not be granted, be- 
seeching them to be orderly, and at the same time warning them not 
to violate the law, which the troops left in the county by General 
Hardin would enforce at all hazards. The report closed as follows: — 

" Remember, whatever may be the aggression against you, the sympathy of the 
public may be forfeited. It cannot be denied that the burning of the houses of 
the Mormons in Hancock County, by which a large number of women and chil- 
dren have been rendered homeless and houseless, in the beginning of the winter, 
was an act criminal in itself, and disgraceful to its perpetrators. And it should 
also be known that it has led many persons to believe that, even if the Mormons 
are so bad as they are represented, they are no worse than those who have burnt 
their houses. Whether your cause is just or unjust, the acts of these incendiaries 
have thus lost for you something of the sympathy and good-will of your fellow- 
citizens ; and a resort to, or persistence in, such a course under existing circum- 
stances will make you forfeit all the respect and sympathy of the community. We 
trust and believe, for this lovely portion of our state, a brighter day is dawning ; 
and we beseech all parties not to seek to hasten its approach by the torch of the 
incendiary, nor to disturb its dawn by the clash of arms." 



342 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The Millennial Star of December i, 1845, thus introduced this 
correspondence : — 

THE END OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

" The following official correspondence shows that this government has given 
thirty thousand American citizens the choice of death or BANISHMENT 
beyond the Rocky Mountains. Of these two evils they have chosen the least. 
WHAT BOASTED LIBERTY ! WHAT an honor to American character ! " 



CHAPTER XX 



THE EVACUATION OF NAUVOO— "THE LAST MORMON WAR " 

The winter of 1 845-1 846 in Hancock County passed without 
any renewed outbreak, but the credit for this seems to have been 
due to the firmness and good judgment of Major W. B. Warren, 
whom General Hardin placed in command of the force which he left 
in that county to preserve order, rather than to any improvement 
in the relations between the two parties, even after the Mormons 
had agreed to depart. 

Major Warren's command, which at first consisted of one hun- 
dred men, and was reduced during the winter to fifty and later to 
ten, came from Ouincy, and had as subordinate officers James D. 
Morgan and B. M. Prentiss, whose names became famous as Union 
generals in the war of the rebellion. Warren showed no favorit- 
ism in enforcing his authority, and he was called on to exercise it 
against both sides. The local newspapers of the day contain 
accounts of occasional burnings during the winter, and of murders 
committed here and there. On November 17, a meeting of citi- 
zens of Warsaw, who styled themselves " a portion of the anti- 
Mormon party," was held to protest against such acts as burnings 
and the murder of a Mormon, ten miles south of Warsaw, and to 
demand adherence to the agreement entered into. On February 5, 
Major Warren had to issue a warning to an organization of anti- 
Mormons who had ordered a number of Mormon families to leave 
the county by May 1, if they did not want to be burned out. 

Governor Ford sent Mr. Brayman to Hancock County as legal 
counsel for the military commander. In a report dated Decem- 
ber 14, 1845, Mr. Brayman said of the condition of affairs as he 
found them : — 

"Judicial proceedings are but mockeries of the forms of law: juries, magis- 
trates and officers of every grade concerned in the civil affairs of the county par- 
take so deeply of the prevailing excitement that no reliance, as a general thing. 

343 



344 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



can be placed on their action. Crime enjoys a disgraceful impunity, and each 
one feels at liberty to commit any aggression, or to avenge his own wrongs to any 
extent, without legal accountability. . . . Whether the parties will become rec- 
onciled or quieted, so as to live together in peace, is doubted. . . . Such a 
series of outrages and bold violations of law as have marked the history of Han- 
cock County for several years past is a blot upon our institutions ; ought not to 
be endured by a civilized people. 1 ' 1 

Meanwhile, the Mormons went on with their preparations for 
their westward march, selling their property as best they could, 
and making every effort to trade real estate in and out of the city, 
and such personal property as they could not take with them, for 
cattle, oxen, mules, horses, sheep, and wagons. Early in Febru- 
ary the non-Mormons were surprised to learn that the- Mormons 
at Nauvoo had begun crossing the river as a beginning of their 
departure for the far West. " We scarcely know what to make of 
this movement," said the Warsaw Signal, the general belief being 
that the Mormons would be slow in carrying out their agreement 
to leave " so soon as grass would grow and water run." The date 
of the first departure, it has since been learned, was hastened by 
the fact that the grand jury in Springfield, Illinois, in December, 
1845, had found certain indictments for counterfeiting, in regard 
to which the Journal of that city, on December 25, gave the fol- 
lowing particulars : — 

" During the last week twelve bills of indictment for counterfeiting Mexican 
dollars and our half dollars and dimes were found by the Grand Jury, and pre- 
sented to the United States Circuit Court in this city against different persons in 
and about Nauvoo, embracing some of the ' Holy Twelve ' and other prominent 
Mormons, and persons in league with them. The manner in which the money 
was put into circulation was stated. At one mill $1500 was paid out for wheat in 
one week. Whenever a land sale was about to take place, wagons were sent off 
with the coin into the land district where such sale was to take place, and no dif- 
ficulty occurred in exchanging off the counterfeit coin for paper. ... So soon 
as the indictments were found, a request was made by the marshal of the Gov- 
ernor of this state for a posse, or the assistance of the military force stationed in 
Hancock County, to enable him to arrest the alleged counterfeiters. Gov. Ford 
refused to grant the request. An officer has since been sent to Nauvoo to make 
the arrests, but we apprehend there is no probability of his success." 

The report that a whole city was practically for sale had been 
widely spread, and many persons — some from the Eastern states 
— began visiting it to see what inducements were offered to new 

1 Warsaw Signal, December 24, 1845. 



THE EVACUATION OF NAUVOO 



345 



settlers, and what bargains were to be had. Among these was 
W. E. Matlack, who on April 10 issued, in Nauvoo, the first num- 
ber of a weekly newspaper called the Hancock Eagle. Matlack 
seems to have been a fair-minded man, possessed of the courage 
of his convictions, and his paper was a better one in a literary 
sense than the average weekly of the day. In his inaugural edi- 
torial he said that he favored the removal of the Mormons as a 
peace measure, but denounced mob rule and threats against the 
Mormons who had not departed. The ultra Antis took offence at 
this at once, and, so far as the Eagle was supposed to represent 
the views of the new-comers, — who were henceforth called New 
Citizens, — counted them little better than the Mormons them- 
selves. Among these, however, was a class whom the county 
should have welcomed, the boats, in one week in May, landing 
four or five merchants, six physicians, three or four lawyers, two 
dentists, and two or three hundred others, including laborers. 

The people of Hancock and the surrounding counties still re- 
fused to believe that the Mormons were sincere in their intention 
to depart, and the county meetings of the year before were reas- 
sembled to warn the Mormons that the citizens stood ready to 
enforce their order. The vacillating course of Governor Ford did 
not help the situation. He issued an order disbanding Major 
Warren's force on May I, and on the following day instructed him 
to muster it into service again. Warren was very outspoken in 
his determination to protect the departing Mormons, and in a 
proclamation which he issued he told them to " leave the fight- 
ing to be done by my detachment. If we are overpowered, then 
recross the river and defend yourselves and your property." 

The peace was preserved during May, and the Mormon exodus 
continued, Young with the first company being already well ad- 
vanced in his march across Iowa. Major Warren sent a weekly 
report on the movement to the Warsaw Signal. That dated May 
14 said that the ferries at Nauvoo and at Fort Madison were each 
taking across an average of 35 teams in twenty-four hours. For 
the week ending May 22 he reported the departure of 539 teams 
and 161 7 persons; and for the weekending May 29, the departure 
of 269 teams and 800 persons, and he said he had counted the day 
before 617 wagons in Nauvoo ready to start. 

But even this activity did not satisfy the ultra element among 



34^ 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the anti-Mormons, and at a meeting in Carthage, on Saturday, 
June 6, resolutions drawn by Editor Sharp of the Signal expressed 
the belief that many of the Mormons intended to remain in the 
state, charged that they continued to commit depredations, and 
declared that the time had come for the citizens of the counties 
affected to arm and equip themselves for action. The Signal 
headed its editorial remarks on this meeting, "War declared in 
Hancock." 

When the news of the gathering at Carthage reached Nauvoo 
it created a panic. The Mormons, lessened in number by the 
many departures, and with their goods mostly packed for moving, 
were in no situation to repel an attack ; and they began hurrying 
to the ferry until the streets were blocked with teams. The New 
Citizens, although the Carthage meeting had appointed a commit- 
tee to confer with them, were almost as much alarmed, and those 
who could do so sent away their families, while several merchants 
packed up their goods for safety. On Friday, June 12, the com- 
mittee of New Citizens met some 600 anti-Mormons who had 
assembled near Carthage, and strenuously objected to their march- 
ing into Nauvoo. As a sort of compromise, the force consented 
to rendezvous at Golden Point, five miles south of Nauvoo, and 
there they arrived the next day. This force, according to the 
Signals own account, was a mere mob, three-fourths of whom 
went there against their own judgment, and only to try to prevent 
extreme measures. A committee was at once sent to Nauvoo to 
confer with the New Citizens, but it met with a decided snubbing. 
The Nauvoo people then sent a committee to the camp, with a 
proposition that thirty men of the Antis march into the city, and 
leave three of their number there to report on the progress of the 
Mormon exodus. 

On Sunday morning, before any such agreement was reached, 
word came from Nauvoo that Sheriff Backenstos had arrived there 
and enrolled a posse of some 500 men, the New Citizens uniting 
with the Mormons for the protection of the place. This led to an 
examination of the war supplies of the Antis, and the discovery 
that they had only five rounds of ammunition to a man, and one 
day's provision. Thereupon they ingloriously broke camp and 
made off to Carthage. 

After this nothing more, serious than a war of words occurred 



THE EVACUATION OF NAUVOO 



347 



until July n, when an event happened which aroused the feeling 
of both parties to the fighting pitch. Three Mormons from Nau- 
voo had been harvesting a held of grain about eight miles from the 
city. 1 In some way they angered a man living near by (according 
to his wife's affidavit, by shooting around his fields, using his stable 
for their horses, and feeding his oats), and he collected some neigh- 
bors, who gave the offenders a whipping, more or less severe, 
according to the account accepted. The men went at once to Nau- 
voo, and exhibited their backs, and that night a Mormon posse 
arrested seventeen Antis and conveyed them to Nauvoo. The 
Antis in turn seized five Mormons whom they held as " hostages," 
and the northern part of Hancock County and a part of McDon- 
ough were in a state of alarm. 

Civil chaos ensued. General Hardin and Major Warren had 
joined the federal army that was to march against Mexico, and 
their cool judgment was greatly missed. One Carlin, appointed 
as a special constable, called on the citizens of Hancock County 
to assemble as his posse to assist in executing warrants in Nauvoo, 
and the Mormons of that city at once took steps to resist arrests 
by him. Governor Ford sent Major Parker of Fulton County, 
who was a Whig, to make an inquiry at Nauvoo and defend that 
city against rioting, and Mr. Brayman remained there to report to 
him on the course of affairs. 

What was called at that time, in Illinois, " the last Mormon 
war" opened with a fusillade of correspondence between Carlin 
and Major Parker, Parker issued a proclamation, calling on all 
good citizens to return to their homes, and Carlin declared that he 
would obev no authoritv which tried to prevent him from doing 
his duty, telling the major that it would " take something more 
than words " to disperse his posse. While Parker was issuing a 
series of proclamations, the so-called posse was, on August 25, 
placed under the command of Colonel J. B. Chittenden of Adams 
County, who was superseded three days later by Colonel Single- 
ton. Colonel Singleton was successful in arranging with Major 
Parker terms of peace, which provided among other things that 
all the Mormons should be out of the state in sixty days, except 
heads of families who remained to close their business ; but the 

x The F.a^.e stated that the farm where the Mormons were at work had been bought 
by a New Citizen, who had sent out both Mormons and New Citizens to cut the grain. 



348 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



colonel's officers rejected this agreement, and the colonel there- 
upon left the camp. Carlin at once appointed Colonel Brockman 
to the chief command. He was a Campbellite preacher who, 
according to Ford, had been a public defaulter and had been 
"silenced" by his church. After rejecting another offer of com- 
promise made by the Mormons, Brockman, on September n, with 
about seven hundred men who called themselves a posse, advanced 
against Nauvoo, with some small field pieces. Governor Ford had 
authorized Major Flood, commanding the militia of Adams County, 
to raise a force to preserve order in Hancock; but the major, 
knowing that such action would only incense the force of the 
Antis, disregarded the governor's request. At this juncture Major 
Parker was relieved of the command at Nauvoo and succeeded by 
Major B. Clifford, Jr., of the 33rd regiment of Illinois Volunteers. 

On the morning of September 12, Brockman sent into Nauvoo 
a demand for its surrender, with the pledge that there would be 
no destruction of property or life " unless absolutely necessary in 
self-defence." Major Clifford rejected this proposition, advised 
Brockman to disperse his force, and named Mayor Wood of 
Quincy and J. P. Eddy, a St. Louis merchant then in Nauvoo, as 
recipients of any further propositions from the Antis. 

The forces at this time were drawn up against one another, the 
Mormons behind a breastwork which they had erected during the 
night, and the Antis on a piece of high ground nearer the city 
than their camp. Brayman says that an estimate which placed 
the Mormon force at five hundred or six hundred was a great 
exaggeration, and that the only artillery they had was six pieces 
which they fashioned for themselves, by breaking some steamboat 
shafts to the proper length and boring them out so that they 
would receive a six-pound shot. 

When Clifford's reply was received, the commander of the Antis 
sent out the Warsaw riflemen as flankers on the right and left ; 
directed the Lima Guards, with one cannon, to take a position a 
mile to the front of the camp and occupy the attention of the men 
behind the Mormon breastwork, who had opened fire ; and then 
marched the main body through a cornfield and orchard to the 
city itself. Both sides kept up an artillery fire while the advance 
was taking place. 

When the Antis reached the settled part of the city, the firing 



THE EVACUATION OF NAUVOO 



349 



became general, but was of an independent character. The Mor- 
mons in most cases fired from their houses, while the Antis found 
such shelter as they could in a cornfield and along a worm fence. 
After about an hour of such fighting, Brockman, discovering that 
all of the sixty-one cannon balls with which he had provided him- 
self had been shot away, decided that it was perilous "to risk a 
further advance without these necessary instruments." Accord- 
ingly, he ordered a retreat and his whole force returned to its 
camp. In this engagement no Antis were killed, and the sur- 
geon's list named only eight wounded, one of whom died. Three 
citizens of Nauvoo were killed. The Mormons had the better 
protection in their houses, but the other side made rather effective 
use of their artillery. 

The Antis began at once intrenching their camp, and sent to 
Quincy for ammunition. There were some exchanges of shots on 
Sunday and Monday, and three Antis were wounded on the latter 
day. 

Quincy responded promptly to the request for ammunition, but 
the people of that town were by no means unanimously in favor 
of the "war." On Sunday evening a meeting of the peaceably 
inclined appointed a committee of one hundred to visit the scene 
of hostilities and secure peace " on the basis of a removal of the 
Mormons." The negotiations of this committee began on the 
following Tuesday, and were continued, at times with apparent 
hopelessness of success, until Wednesday evening, when terms of 
peace were finally signed. It required the utmost effort of the 
Quincy committee to induce the anti-Mormon force to delay an 
assault on the city, which would have meant conflagration and 
massacre. The terms of peace were as follows : — 

"i. The city of Nauvoo will surrender. The force of Col. Brockman 
to enter and take possession of the city to-morrow, the 17th of September, at 
3 o'clock P.M. 

"2. The arms to be delivered to the Quincy Committee, to be returned on 
the crossing of the river. 

"3. The Quincy Committee pledge themselves to use their influence for the 
protection of persons and property from all violence ; and the officers of the 
camp and the men pledge themselves to protect all persons and property from 
violence. 

" 4. The sick and helpless to be protected and treated with humanity. 
"5. The Mormon population of the city to leave the State, or disperse, as 
soon as they can cross the river. 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



"6. Five men, including the trustees of the church, and five clerks, with 
their families (William Pickett not one of the number), to be permitted to remain 
in the city for the disposition of property, free from all molestation and personal 
violence. 

"7. Hostilities to cease immediately, and ten men of the Quincy Committee 
to enter the city in the execution of their duty as soon as they think proper/' 

The noticeable features of these terms are the omission of any 
reference to the execution of Carlin's writs, and the engagement 
that the Mormons should depart immediately. The latter was the 
real object of the ''posse's " campaign. 

The Mormons had realized that they could not continue their 
defence, as no reinforcements could reach them, while any tempo- 
rary check to their adversaries would only increase the animosity 
of the latter. They acted, therefore, in good faith as regards their 
agreement to depart. How they went is thus described in Bray- 
man's second report to Governor Ford : 2 — 

" These terms were not definitely signed until the morning of Thursday, the 
17th, but, confident of their ratification, the Mormon population had been busy 
through the night in removing. So firmly had they been taught to believe that 
their lives, their city, and Temple, would fall a sacrifice to the vengeance of their 
enemies, if surrendered to them, that they fled in consternation, determined to 
be beyond their reach at all hazards. This scene of confusion, fright and dis- 
tress was continued throughout the forenoon. In every part of the city scenes 
of destitution, misery and woe met the eye. Families were hurrying away from 
their homes, without a shelter, — without means of conveyance, — without tents, 
money, or a day's provision, with as much of their household stuff as they could 
carry in their hands. Sick men and women were carried upon their beds — weary 
mothers, with helpless babes dying in the arms, hurried away — all fleeing, they 
scarcely knew or cared whither, so it was from their enemies, whom they feared 
more than the waves of the Mississippi, or the heat, and hunger and lingering 
life and dreaded death of the prairies on which they were about to be cast. The 
ferry boats were crowded, and the river bank was lined with anxious fugitives, 
sadly awaiting their turn to pass over and take up their solitary march to the 
wilderness." 

On the afternoon of the 17th, Brockman's force, with which 
the members of the Quincy committee had been assigned a place, 
marched into Nauvoo and through it, encamping near the river on 
the southern boundary. Curiosity to see the Mormon city had 
swelled the number who entered at the same time with the posse 
to nearly two thousand men, but there was no disorder. The 

1 For Brayman's reports, see Warsaw Signal, October 20, 1846. 



THE EVACUATION OF NAUVOO 



351 



streets were practically deserted, and the few Mormons who 
remained were busy with their preparations to cross the river. 
Brockman, to make his victory certain, ordered that all citizens 
of Nauvoo who had sided with the Mormons should leave the 
state, thus including many of the New Citizens. The order was 
enforced on September 18, "with many circumstances of the 
utmost cruelty and injustice," according to Brayman's report. 
" Bands of armed men," he said, " traversed the city, entering the 
houses of citizens, robbing them of arms, throwing their household 
goods out of doors, insulting them, and threatening their lives." 



CHAPTER XXI 

NAUVOO AFTER THE EXODUS 

Brockman's force was disbanded after its object had been 
accomplished, and all returned to their homes but about one 
hundred, who remained in Nauvoo to see that no Mormons 
came back. These men, whose number gradually decreased, 
provided what protection and government the place then enjoyed. 
Governor Ford received much censure from the state at large for 
the lawless doings of the recent months. A citizens' meeting at 
Springfield demanded that he call out a force sufficient " to restore 
the supremacy of the law, and bring the offenders to justice." He 
did call on Hancock County for volunteers to restore order, but a 
public meeting in Carthage practically defied him. He, however, 
secured a force of about two hundred men, with which he marched 
into Nauvoo, greatly to the indignation of the Hancock County 
people. His stay there was marked by incidents which showed 
how his erratic course in recent years had deprived him of public 
respect, and which explain some of the bitterness toward the 
county which characterizes his " History." One of these was the 
presentation to him of a petticoat as typical of his rule. When 
Ford was succeeded as governor by French, the latter withdrew 
the militia from the county, and, in an address to the citizens, said, 
" I confidently rely upon your assistance and influence to aid in 
preventing any act of a violent character in future." Matters in 
the county then quieted down. The Warsaw newspapers, in place 
of anti-Mormon literature, began to print appeals to new settlers, 
setting forth, the advantages of the neighborhood. But a news- 
paper war soon followed between two factions in Nauvoo, one of 
which contended that the place was an assemblage of gamblers 
and saloon-keepers, while the other defended its reputation. This 
latter view, however, was not established, and most of the houses 
remained tenantless. 

352 



NAUVOO AFTER THE EXODUS 



353 



Amid all their troubles in Nauvoo the Mormon authorities 
never lost sight of one object, the completion of the Temple. To 
the non-Mormons, and even to many in the church, it seemed inex- 
plicable why so much zeal and money should be expended in fin- 
ishing a structure that was to be at once abandoned. Before the 
agreement to leave the state was made, a Warsaw newspaper pre- 
dicted that the completion of the Temple would end the reign of 
the Mormon leaders, since their followers were held together by 
the expectation of some supernatural manifestation of power in 
their behalf at that time. 1 Another outside newspaper suggested 
that they intended to use it as a fort. 

Orson Pratt, in a letter to the Saints in the Eastern states, writ- 
ten at the time of the agreement to depart, answering the query 
why the Lord commanded them to build a house out of which he 
would then suffer them to be driven at once, quoted a paragraph 
from the ''revelation'" of January 19, 1841, which commanded the 
building of the Temple "that you may prove yourselves unto me, 
that ye are faithful in all things whatsoever I command you, that 
I may bless you and cover you with honor, immortality, and eternal 
life." 

The cap-stone of the Temple was laid in place early on the 
morning of May 24, 1S45, amid shouts of "' Hosannah to God and 
the Lamb," music by the band, and the singing of a hymn. 

The first meeting was held in the Temple on October 5, 1845, 
and from that time the ediiice was used almost constantly in ad- 
ministering the ordinances (baptism, endowment, etc.). Brigham 
Young says that on one occasion he continued this work from 
5 p.m. to 3.30 a.m., and others of the Quorum assisted. 

The ceremony of the '' endowment," although considered very 
secret, has been described by many persons who have gone through 
it. The descriptions by Elder Hyde and I. McGee Van Dusen and 
his wife go into details. A man and wife received notice to appear 

1 A man from the neighborhood who visited Nauvoo in 1S43 to buy calves called 
on a blind man, of whom he says : u He told me he had a nice home in Massachusetts, 
which gave them a good support. But one of the Mormon elders preaching in that 
country called on him and told him if he would sell out and go to Nauvoo the Prophet 
would restore his sight. He sold out and had come to the city and spent all his means, 
and was now in great need. I asked why the Prophet did not open his eyes. He replied 
that Joseph had informed him that he could not open his eyes till the Temple was fin- 
ished." — Gregg, m History of Hancock County," p. 375. 



354 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



at the Temple at Nauvoo at 5 a.m., he to wear white drawers, and 
she to bring her nightclothes with her. Passing to the upper floor, 
they were told to remove their hats and outer wraps, and were then 
led into a narrow hall, at the end of which stood a man who directed 
the husband to pass through a door on the right, and the wife to 
one on the left. The candidates were then questioned as to their 
preparation for the initiation, and if this resulted satisfactorily, 
they were directed to remove all their outer clothing. This ended 
the "first degree." In the next room their remaining clothing 
was removed and they received a bath, with some mummeries 
which may best be omitted. Next they were anointed all over 
with oil poured from a horn, and pronounced " the Lord's anointed," 
and a priest ordained them to be " king (or queen) in time and 
eternity." The man was now furnished with a white cotton under- 
garment of an original design, over which he put his shirt, and the 
woman was given a somewhat similar article, together with a che- 
mise, nightgown, and white stockings. Each was then conducted 
into another apartment and left there alone in silence for some 
time. Then a rumbling noise was heard, and Brigham Young 
appeared, reciting some words, beginning " Let there be light," 
and ending " Now let us make man in our image, after our like- 
ness." Approaching the man first, he went through a form of 
making him out of the dust ; then, passing into the other room, he 
formed the woman out of a rib he had taken from the man. Giv- 
ing this Eve to the man Adam, he led them into a large room 
decorated to represent Eden, and, after giving them divers instruc- 
tions, left them to themselves. 

Much was said in later years about the requirement of the 
endowment oath. When General Maxwell tried to prevent the 
seating of Cannon as Delegate to Congress in 1873, one of his 
charges was that Cannon had, in the Endowment House, taken an 
oath against the United States government. This called out affi- 
davits by some of the leading anti-Young Mormons of the day, 
including E. L. T. Harrison, that they had gone through the 
Endowment House without taking any oath of the kind. But 
Hyde, in his description of the ceremony, says : — 

" We were sworn to cherish constant enmity toward the United States Gov- 
ernment for not avenging the death of Smith, or righting the persecutions of the 
Saints ; to do all that we could toward destroying, tearing down or overturning 



NAUVOO AFTER THE EXODUS 



355 



that government ; to endeavor to baffle its designs and frustrate its intentions ; 
to renounce all allegiance and refuse all submission. If unable to do anything 
ourselves toward the accomplishment of these objects, to teach it to our children 
from the nursery, impress it upon them from the death bed, entail it upon them 
as a legacy." 1 

In the suit of Charlotte Arthur against Brigham Young's estate, 
to recover a lot in Salt Lake City which she alleged that Young 
had unlawfully taken possession of, her verified complaint (filed 
July ii, 1874) alleged that the endowment oath contained the fol- 
lowing declaration : — 

" To obey him, the Lord's anointed, in all his orders, spiritual and temporal, 
and the priesthood or either of them, and all church authorities in like manner; 
that this obligation is superior to all the laws of the United States, and all earthly 
laws ; that enmity should be cherished against the government of the United 
States ; that the blood of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and Apostles slain in this 
generation shall be avenged. 1 ' 

As soon as the agreement to leave the state was made, the 
Mormons tried hard to sell or lease the Temple, but in vain ; and 
when the last Mormon departed, the structure was left to the mercy 
of the Hancock County "posse." Colonel Kane, in his description 
of his visit to Nauvoo soon after the evacuation, says that the 
militia had defiled and defaced such features as the shrines and the 
baptismal font, the apartment containing the latter being rendered 
" too noisome to abide in." 

Had the building been permitted to stand, it would have been 
to Nauvoo something on which the town could have looked as its 
most remarkable feature. But early on the morning of Novem- 
ber 19, 1848, the structure was found to be on fire, evidently the 
work of an incendiary, and what the flames could eat up was soon 
destroyed. The Nauvoo Patriot deplored the destruction of "a 
work of art at once the most elegant in its construction, and the 
most renowned in its celebrity, of any in the whole West." 

When the Icarians, a band of French Socialists, settled in 
Nauvoo, they undertook, in 1850, to rebuild the edifice for use 
as their halls of reunion and schools. After they had expended on 
this work a good deal of time and labor, the city was visited by a 
cyclone on May 27 of that year, which left standing only a part of 
the west wall. Out of the stone the Icarians then built a school- 

1 Hyde's " Mormonism," p. 97. 



35^ 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



house, but nothing original now remains on the site except the old 
well. 

The Nauvoo of to-day is a town of only 1321 inhabitants. The 
people are largely of German origin, and the leading occupation is 
fruit growing. The site of the Temple is occupied by two modern 
buildings. A part of Nauvoo House is still standing, as are 
Brigham Young's former residence, Joseph Smith's " new man- 
sion," and other houses which Mormons occupied. 

The Mormons in Iowa were no more popular with their non- 
Mormon neighbors there than were those in Illinois, and after the 
murders by the Hodges, and other crimes charged to the brethren, 
a mass meeting of Lee County inhabitants was held, which adopted 
resolutions declaring that the Mormons and the old settlers could 
not live together and that the Mormons must depart, citizens being 
requested to aid in this movement by exchanging property with the 
emigrants. In 1847 tne last of these objectionable citizens left the 
county. 



BOOK V 



THE MIGRATION TO UTAH 

CHAPTER I 

PREPARATIONS FOR THE LONG MARCH 

Two things may be accepted as facts with regard to the mi- 
gration of the Mormons westward from Illinois : first, that they 
would not have moved had they not been compelled to; and second, 
that they did not know definitely where they were going when 
they started. Although Joseph Smith showed an uncertainty of 
his position by his instruction that the Twelve should look for a 
place in California or Oregon to which his people might move, he 
considered this removal so remote a possibility that he was at the 
same time beginning his campaign for the presidency of the United 
States. As late as the spring of 1845, removal was considered by 
the leaders as only an alternative. In April, Brigham Young, 
Willard Richards, the two Pratts, and others issued an address to 
President Polk, which was sent to the governors of all the states 
but Illinois and Missouri, setting forth their previous trials, and 
containing this declaration : — 

" In the name of Israel's God, and by virtue of multiplied ties of country and 
kindred, we ask your friendly interposition in our favor. Will it be too much 
for us to ask you to convene a special session of Congress and furnish us an asy- 
lum where we can enjoy our rights of conscience and religion unmolested ? Or 
will you, in special message to that body when convened, recommend a remon- 
strance against such unhallowed acts of oppression and expatriation as this people 
have continued to receive from the states of Missouri and Illinois ? Or will you 
favor us by your personal influence and by your official rank ? Or will you ex- 
press your views concerning what is called the Great Western Measure of coloniz- 
ing the Latter-Day Saints in Oregon, the Northwestern Territory, or some 
location remote from the states, where the hand of oppression will not crush 
every noble principle and extinguish every patriotic feeling ? 11 

357 



358 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



After the publication of the correspondence between the Hardin 
commission and the Mormon authorities, Orson Pratt issued an 
appeal " to American citizens," in which, referring to what he 
called the proposed " banishment " of the Mormons, he said : " Ye 
fathers of the Revolution ! Ye patriots of '76 ! Is it for this ye 
toiled and suffered and bled ? . . . Must they be driven from this 
renowned republic to seek an asylum among other nations, or 
wander as hopeless exiles among the red men of the western wilds ? 
Americans, will ye suffer this ? Editors, will ye not speak ? Fel- 
low-citizens, will ye not awake?" 1 

Their destination could not have been determined in advance, 
because so little was known of the Far West. The territory now 
embraced in the boundaries of California and Utah was then under 
Mexican government, and " California " was, in common use, a 
name covering the Pacific coast and a stretch of land extending 
indefinitely eastward. Oregon had been heard of a good deal, 
and it, as well as Vancouver Island, had been spoken of as a pos- 
sible goal if a westward migration became necessary. Lorenzo 
Snow, in describing the westward start, said : " On the first of 
March, the ground covered with snow, we broke encampment 
about noon, and soon nearly four hundred wagons were moving to 
— we knew not where." 2 

The first step taken by the Mormon authorities to explain the 
removal to their people was an explanation made at a conference 
in the new Temple, three days after the correspondence with the 
commission closed. P. P. Pratt stated to the conference that the 
removal meant that the Lord designed to lead them to a wider field 
of action, where no one could say that they crowded their neigh- 
bors. In such a place they could, in five years, become richer 
than they then were, and could build a bigger and a better Temple. 
"It has cost us," said he, "more for sickness, defence against 
mob exactions, persecutions, and to purchase lands in this place, 
than as much improvement will cost in another." It was then 
voted unanimously that the Saints would move en masse to the 
West, and that every man would give all the help he could to assist 
the poorer members of the community in making the journey. 3 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. VI, p. 193. 2 "Biography of Lorenzo Snow," p. 86. 

3 Millennial Star, Vol. VI, p. 196. Wilford Woodruff, in an appeal to the Saints in 
Great Britain, asked them to buy Mormon books in order to assist the Presidency with 
funds with which to take the poor Saints with them westward. 



PREPARATIONS FOR THE LONG MARCH 359 



Brigham Young next issued an address to the church at large, 
stating that even the Mormon Bible had foretold what might be 
the conduct of the American nation toward " the Israel of the last 
days," and urging all to prepare to make the journey. A confer- 
ence of Mormons in New York City on November 12, 1845, at- 
tended by brethren from New York State, New Jersey, and 
Connecticut, voted that "the church in this city move, one and all, 
west of the Rocky Mountains between this and next season, either 
by land or by water." 

Active preparations for the removal began in and around 
Nauvoo at once. All who had property began trading it for arti- 
cles that would be needed on the journey. Real estate was traded 
or sold for what it would bring, and the Eagle was full of adver- 
tisements of property to sell, including the Mansion House, Ma- 
sonic Hall, and the Armory. The Mormons would load in wagons 
what furniture they could not take West with them, and trade it 
in the neighborhood for things more useful. The church author- 
ities advertised for one thousand yokes of oxen and all the cattle 
and mules that might be offered, oxen bringing from $40 to $50 
a yoke. The necessary outfit for a family of five was calculated 
to be one wagon, three yokes of cattle, two cows, two beef cattle, 
three sheep, one thousand pounds of flour, twenty pounds of sugar, 
a tent and bedding, seeds, farming tools, and a rifle — all estimated 
to cost about $250. Three or four hundred Mormons were sent 
to more distant points in Illinois and Iowa for draft animals, and, 
when the Western procession started, they boasted that they owned 
the best cattle and horses in the country. 

In the city the men were organized into companies, each of 
which included such workmen as wagonmakers, blacksmiths, and 
carpenters, and the task of making wagons, tents, etc., was hurried 
to the utmost. " Nauvoo was constituted into one great wagon 
shop," wrote John Taylor. If any members of the community 
were not skilled in the work now in demand, they were sent to 
St. Louis, Galena, Burlington, or some other of the larger towns, 
to find profitable employment during the winter, and thus add to 
the moving fund. 

On January 20, 1846, the High Council issued a circular an- 
nouncing that, early in March, a company of hardy young men, 
with some families, would be sent into the Western country, with 



36o 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



farming utensils and seed, to put in a crop and erect houses for 
others who would follow as soon as the grass was high enough for 
pasture. 

This circular contained also the following declaration : — 

" We venture to say that our brethren have made no counterfeit money ; 
and if any miller has received $1500 base coin in a week from us, let him testify. 
If any land agent of the general government has received wagon loads of base 
coin from us in payment for lands, let him say so. Or if he has received any at 
all, let him tell it. These witnesses against us have spun a long yarn." 

This referred to the charges of counterfeiting, which had re- 
sulted in the indictment of some of the Twelve at Springfield, and 
which hastened the first departures across the river. That coun- 
terfeiting was common in the Western country at that time is a 
matter of history, and the Mormons themselves had accused such 
leading members of their church as Cowdery of being engaged in 
the business. The persons indicted at Springfield were never 
tried, so that the question of their guilt cannot be decided. Tul- 
lidge's pro-Mormon " Life of Brigham Young " mentions an 
incident which occurred when the refugees had gone only as far 
as the Chariton River in Iowa, which both admits that they had 
counterfeit money among them, and shows the mild view which a 
Bishop of the church took of the offence of passing it : — 

" About this time also an attempt was made to pass counterfeit money. It 
was the case of a young man who bought from a Mr. Cochran a yoke of oxen, a 
cow and a chain for $50. Bishop Miller wrote to Brigham to excuse the young 
man, but to help Cochran to restitution. The President was roused to great an- 
ger, the Bishop was severely rebuked, and the anathemas of the leader from that 
time were thundered against thieves and ' bogus men,' and passers of bogus 
money. . . . The following is a minute of his diary of a council on the next 
Sunday, with the twelve bishops and captains : 1 1 told them I was satisfied the 
course we were taking would prove to be the salvation, not only of the camp but 
of the Saints left behind. But there had been things done which were wrong. 
Some pleaded our sufferings from persecution, and the loss of our homes and 
property, as a justification for retaliating on our enemies ; but such a course tends 
to destroy the Kingdom of God." 

As soon as the leaders decided to make a start, they sent a 
petition to the governor of Iowa Territory, explaining their inten- 
tion to pass through that domain, and asking for his protection 
during the temporary stay they might make there. No opposition 
to them seems to have been shown by the Iowans, who on the con- 



PREPARATIONS FOR THE LONG MARCH 



361 



trary employed them as laborers, sold them such goods as they 
could pay for, and invited their musicians to give concerts at the 
resting points. Lee's experience in Iowa confirmed him, he says, 
in his previous opinion that much of the Mormons' trouble was due 
to "wild, ignorant fanatics"; "for," he adds, "only a few years 
before, these same people were our most bitter enemies, and, when 
we came again and behaved ourselves, they treated us with the 
utmost kindness and hospitality." 1 

How much property the Mormons sacrificed in Illinois cannot 
be ascertained with accuracy. An investigation of all the testi- 
mony obtainable on the subject leads to the conclusion that a good 
deal of their real estate was disposed of at a fair price, and that 
there were many cases of severe individual loss. Major Warren, 
in a communication to the Sigfial from Nauvoo, in May, 1846, 
said that few of the Mormons' farms remained unsold, and that 
three-fourths of the improved property on the flat in Nauvoo had 
been disposed of. 

A correspondent of the Signal, answering on April 11 an 
assertion that the Mormons had a good deal of real estate to dis- 
pose of before they could leave, replied that most of their farms 
were sold, and that there were more inquiries after the others than 
there were farms. As to the real estate in the city, he explained : 
" It is scattered over an area of eight or ten square miles, and con- 
tains from 1500 to 2000 houses, four-fifths of which, at least, are 
wretched cabins of no permanent value whatever. There are, 
however, 200 or 300 houses, large and small, built of brick and 
other desirable material. Such will mostly sell, though many of 
them, owing to the distance from the river and other unfavorable 
circumstances, only at a very great sacrifice." 2 

A general epistle to the church from the Twelve, dated Win- 
ter Quarters, December 23, 1847, stated that the property of the 
Saints in Hancock County was " little or no better than con- 
fiscated." 3 

1 " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 179. 

2 " A score or more of chimneys on the northern boundary of the city marked the 
site of houses deliberately burned for fuel during the winter of 1 845-1846." — Hancock 
Eagle, May 29. 1S46. 

8 See John Taylor's address, p. 41 1 post. 



CHAPTER II 



FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI 

The first party to leave Nauvoo began crossing the Mississippi 
early in February, 1846, using flatboats propelled by oars for the 
wagons and animals, and small boats for persons and the lighter 
baggage. It soon became colder and snow fell, and after the 16th 
those who remained were able to cross on the ice. 

Brigham Young, with a few attendants, had crossed on Febru- 
ary 10, and selected a point on Sugar Creek as a gathering place. 1 
He seems to have returned secretly to the city for a few days to 
arrange for the departure of his family, and Lee says that he did 
not have teams enough at that time for their conveyance, adding, 
" such as were in danger of being arrested were helped away first." 
John Taylor says that those who crossed the river in February 
included the Twelve, the High Council, and about four hundred 
families. 2 

" Camp of Israel " was the name adopted for the camp in which 
President Young and the Twelve might be, and this name moved 
westward with them. The camp on Sugar Creek was the first of 
these, and there, on February 17, Young addressed the company 
from a wagon. He outlined the journey before them, declaring 
that order would be preserved, and that all who wished to live in 
peace when the actual march began "must toe the mark," ending 
with a call for a show of hands by those who wanted to make the 
move. The vote in favor of going West. was unanimous. 3 

1 " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 171. 

2 " February 14 I crossed the river with my family and teams, and encamped not 
far from the Sugar Creek encampment, taking possession of a vacant log house on 
account of the extreme cold." — P. P. Pratt, "Autobiography," p. 378. 

3 " At a Council in Nauvoo of the men who were to act as the captains of the peo- 
ple in that famous exodus, one after the other brought up difficulties in their path, until 
the prospect was without one poor speck of daylight. The good nature of George A. 
Smith was provoked at last, when he sprang up and observed, with his quaint humor, 
that had now a touch of the grand in it, ' If there is no God in Israel we are a sucked-in 
set of fellows. But I am going to take my family and the Lord will open the wav,' " — 
Tullidge, " History of Salt Lake City," p. 17. 

362 



FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI 363 



The turning out of doors in midwinter of so many persons of 
all ages and both sexes, accustomed to the shelter of comfortable 
homes, entailed much suffering. A covered wagon or a tent is 
a poor protection from wintry blasts, and a camp fire in the open 
air, even with a bright sky overhead, is a poor substitute for 
a stove. Their first move, therefore, gave the emigrants a taste of 
the trials they were to endure. While they were at Sugar Creek 
the thermometer dropped to 20 below zero, and heavy falls of 
snow occurred. Several children were born at this point, before 
the actual Western journey began, and the sick and the feeble 
entered upon their sufferings at once. Before that camp broke 
up it was found necessary, too, to buy grain for the animals. 

The camp was directly in charge of the Twelve until the Chari- 
ton River was reached. There, on March 27, it was divided into 
companies containing from 50 to 60 wagons, the companies being 
put in charge of captains of fifties and captains of tens — sug- 
gesting Smith's "Army of Zion." The captains of fifties were 
responsible directly to the High Council. There were also a com- 
missary general, and, for each fifty, a contracting commissary " to 
make righteous distribution of grains and provisions." Strict order 
was maintained by day while the column was in motion, and, when- 
ever there was a halt, special care was taken to secure the cattle 
and the horses, while at night watches were constantly maintained. 
The story of the march to the Missouri does not contain a mention 
of any hostile meeting with Indians. 

The company remained on Sugar Creek for about a month, 
receiving constant accessions from across the river, and on the first 
of March the real westward movement began. The first objective 
point was Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the Missouri River, about 400 
miles distant ; but on the way several camps were established, at 
which some of the emigrants stopped to plant seeds and make 
other arrangements for the comfort of those who were to follow. 
The first of these camps was located at Richardson's Point in Lee 
County, Iowa, 55 miles from Nauvoo; the next on Chariton River; 
the next on Locust Creek; the next, named by them Garden Grove, 
on a branch of Grand River, some 1 50 miles from Nauvoo ; and 
another, which P. P. Pratt named Mt. Pisgah, on Grand River, 138 
miles east of Council Bluffs. The camp on the Missouri first made 
was called Winter Quarters, and was situated just north of the 



3^4 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



present site of Omaha, where the town now called Florence is 
located. It was not until July that the main body arrived at 
Council Bluffs. 

The story of this march is a remarkable one in many ways. 
Begun in winter, with the ground soon covered with snow, the 
travellers encountered arctic weather, with the inconveniences of 
ice, rain, and mud, until May. After a snowfall they would have 
to scrape the ground when they had selected a place for pitching 
the tents. After a rain, or one of the occasional thaws, the coun- 
try (there were no regular roads) would be practically impassable 
for teams, and they would have to remain in camp until the water 
disappeared, and the soil would bear the weight of the wagons 
after it was corduroyed with branches of trees. At one time bad 
roads caused a halt of two or three weeks. Fuel was not always 
abundant, and after a cold night it was no unusual thing to find 
wet garments and bedding frozen stiff in the morning. Here is 
an extract from Orson Pratt's diary : — 

" April 9. The rain poured down in torrents. With great exertion a part of 
the camp were enabled to get about six miles, while others were stuck fast in the 
deep mud. We encamped at a point of timber about sunset, after being drenched 
several hours in rain. We were obliged to cut brush and limbs of trees, and 
throw them upon the ground in our tents, to keep our beds from sinking in the 
mud. Our animals were turned loose to look out for themselves ; the bark and 
limbs of trees were their principal food." 1 

Game was plenty, — deer, wild turkeys, and prairie hens, — but 
while the members of this party were better supplied with provi- 
sions than their followers, there was no surplus among them, and 
by April many families were really destitute of food. Eliza Snow 
mentions that her brother Lorenzo — one of the captains of tens 
— had two wagons, a small tent, a cow, and a scanty supply of 
provisions and clothing, and that " he was much better off than 
some of our neighbors." Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve, 
says of the situation of his family, that he had the ague, and his 
wife was in bed with it, with two children, one a few days old, 
lying by her, and the oldest child well enough to do any house- 
hold work was a boy who could scarcely carry a two-quart pail of 
water. Mrs. F. D. Richards, whose husband was ordered on a 
mission to England while the camp was at Sugar Creek, was pre- 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 370. 



FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI 



365 



maturely confined in a wagon on the way to the Missouri. The 
babe died, as did an older daughter. " Our situation," she says, 
" was pitiable ; I had not suitable food for myself or my child ; 
the severe rain prevented our having any fire." 

The adaptability of the American pioneer to his circum- 
stances was . shown during this march in . many ways. When a 
halt occurred, a shoemaker might be seen looking for a stone to 
serve as a lap stone in his repair work, or a gunsmith mending a 
rifle, or a weaver at a wheel or loom. The women learned that 
the jolting wagons would churn their milk, and, when a halt 
occurred, it took them but a short time to heat an oven hollowed 
out of a hillside, in which to bake the bread already " raised." 
Colonel Kane says that he saw a piece of cloth, the wool for which 
was sheared, dyed, spun, and woven during this march. 

The leaders of the company understood the people they had in 
charge, and they looked out for their good spirits. Captain Pitt's 
brass band was included in the equipment, and the camp was not 
thoroughly organized before, on a clear evening, a dance — the 
Mormons have always been great dancers — was announced, and 
the visiting lowans looked on in amazement, to see these exiles 
from comfortable homes thus enjoying themselves on the open 
prairie, the highest dignitaries leading in Virginia reels and 
Copenhagen jigs. 

John Taylor, whose pictures of this march, painted with a view 
to attract English emigrants, were always highly colored, estimated 
that, when he left Council Bluffs for England, in July, 1846, there 
were in camp and on the way 15,000 Mormons, with 3000 wagons, 
30,000 head of cattle, a great many horses and mules, and a vast 
number of sheep. Colonel Kane says that, besides the wagons, 
there was " a large number of nondescript turnouts, the motley 
makeshifts of poverty ; from the unsuitable heavy cart that lum- 
bered on mysteriously, with its sick driver hidden under its coun- 
terpane cover, to the crazy two-wheeled trundle, such as our own 
poor employ in the conveyance of their slop barrels, this pulled 
along, it may be, by a little dry-dugged heifer, and rigged up only 
to drag some such light weight as a baby, a sack of meal or a pack 
of clothes and bedding." 1 

There was no large supply of cash to keep this army and its 

1 "The Mormons," a lecture by Colonel T. L. Kane. 



366 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



animals in provisions. Every member who could contribute to 
the commissary department by his labor was expected to do so. 
The settlers in the territory seem to have been in need of such 
assistance, and were very glad to pay for it in grain, hay, or provi- 
sions. A letter from one of the emigrants to a friend in England 1 
said that, in every settlement they passed through, they found 
plenty of work, digging wells and cellars, splitting rails, thresh- 
ing, ploughing, and clearing land. Some of the men in the spring 
were sent south into Missouri, not more than forty miles from Far 
West, in search of employment This they readily secured, no one 
raising the least objection to a Mormon who was not to be a perma- 
nent settler. Others were sent into that state to exchange horses, 
feather beds, and other personal property for cows and provisions. 

A part of the plan of operations provided for sending out 
pioneers to select the route and camping sites, to make bridges 
where they were necessary, and to open roads. The party car- 
ried light boats, but a good many bridges seem to have been re- 
quired because of the spring freshets. It was while resting after 
a march through prolonged rain and mud, late in April, that it was 
decided to establish the permanent camp called Garden Grove. 
Hundreds of men were at once set to work, making log houses 
and fences, digging wells, and ploughing, and soon hundreds of 
acres were enclosed and planted. 

The progress made during April was exasperatingly slow. 
There was soft mud during the day, and rough ruts in the early 
morning. Sometimes camp would be pitched after making only 
a mile ; sometimes they would think they had done well if they 
had made six. The animals, in fact, were so thin from lack of 
food that they could not do a day's work even under favorable cir- 
cumstances. The route, after the middle of April, was turned to 
the north, and they then travelled over a broken prairie country, 
where the game had been mostly killed off by the Pottawottomi 
Indians, whose trails and abandoned camps were encountered 
constantly. 

On May 16, as the two Pratts and others were in advance, 
locating the route, P. P. Pratt discovered the site of what was 
called Mt. Pisgah (the post-office of Mt. Pisgah of to-day) which 
he thus describes : " Riding about three or four miles over beauti- 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. VIII, p. 59. 



FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI 367 

ful prairies, I came suddenly to some round sloping hills, grassy, 
and crowned with beautiful groves of timber, while alternate open 
groves and forests seemed blended into all the beauty and har- 
mony of an English park. Beneath and beyond, on the west, 
rolled a main branch of Grand River, with its rich bottoms of 
alternate forest and prairie." 1 As soon as Young and the other 
high dignitaries arrived, it was decided to form a settlement there, 
and several thousand acres were enclosed for cultivation, and many 
houses were built. 

Young and most of the first party continued their westward 
march through an uninhabited country, where they had to make 
their own roads. But they met with no opposition from Indians, 
and the head of the procession reached the banks of the Missouri 
near Council Bluffs in June, other companies following in quite 
rapid succession. 

The company which was the last to leave Nauvoo (on Septem- 
ber 17), driven out by the Hancock County forces, endured suffer- 
ings much greater than did the early companies who were conducted 
by Brigham Young. The latter comprised the well-to-do of the 
city and all the high officers of the church, while the remnant left 
behind was made up of the sick and those who had not succeeded 
in securing the necessary equipment for the journey. Brayman, 
in his second report to Governor Ford, said : — 

" Those of the Mormons who were wealthy or possessed desirable real estate 
in the city had sold and departed last spring. I am inclined to the opinion that 
the leaders of the church took with them all the movable wealth of their people 
that they could control, without making proper provision for those who remained. 
Consequently there was much destitution among them ; much sickness and dis- 
tress. I traversed the city, and visited in company with a practising physician 
the sick, and almost invariably found them destitute, to a painful extent, of the 
comforts of life." 2 

It was on the 18th of September that the last of these unfor- 
tunates crossed the river, making 640 who were then collected on 
the west bank. Illness had not been accepted by the " posse" as 
an excuse for delay. Thomas Bullock says that his family, con- 
sisting of a husband, wife, blind mother-in-law, four children, and 
an aunt, " all shaking with the ague," were given twenty minutes 

1 Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 381. 

2 Warsazv Signal, October 20, 1846. 



368 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



in which to get their goods into two wagons and start. 1 The 
west bank in Iowa, where the people landed, was marshy and 
unhealthy, and the suffering at what was called " Poor Camp," a 
short distance above Montrose, was intense. Severe storms were 
frequent, and the best cover that some of the people could obtain 
was a tent made of a blanket or a quilt, or even of brush, or the 
shelter to be had under the wagons of those who were fortunate 
enough to be thus equipped. Bullock thus describes one night's 
experience : " On Monday, September 23, while in my wagon on 
the slough opposite Nauvoo, a most tremendous thunderstorm 
passed over, which drenched everything we had. Not a dry thing 
left us — the bed a pool of water, my wife and mother-in-law lading 
it out by basinfuls, and I in a burning fever and insensible, with all 
my hair shorn off to cure me of my disease. A poor woman stood 
among the bushes, wrapping her cloak around her three little 
orphan children, to shield them from the storm as well as she 
could." The supply of food, too, was limited, their flour being 
wheat ground in hand mills, and even this at times failing ; then 
roasted corn was substituted, the grain being mixed by some with 
slippery elm bark to eke it out. 2 The people of Hancock County 
contributed something in the way of clothing and provisions and 
a little money in aid of these sufferers, and the trustees of the 
church who were left in Nauvoo to sell property gave what help 
they could. 

On October 9 wagons sent back by the earlier emigrants for 
their unfortunate brethren had arrived, and the start for the Mis- 
souri began. Bullock relates that, just as they were ready to set 
out, a great flight of quails settled in the camp, running around the 
wagons so near that they could be knocked over with sticks, and 
the children caught some alive. One bird lighted upon their tea 
board, in the midst of the cups, while they were at breakfast. It 
was estimated that five hundred of the birds were flying about the 
camp that day, but when one hundred had been killed or caught, 
the captain forbade the killing of any more, " as it was a direct 
manifestation and visitation by the Lord." Young closes his 
account of this incident with the words, " Tell this to the nations 
of the earth! Tell it to the kings and nobles and great ones." 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 28. 

2 Bancroft's " History of Utah," p. 233. 



FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI 



369 



Wells, in his manuscript, "Utah Notes" (quoted by H. H. Ban- 
croft), says : " This phenomenon extended some thirty or forty 
miles along the river, and was generally observed. The quail in 
immense quantities had attempted to cross the river, but this 
being beyond their strength, had dropped into the river boats or 
on the banks." 1 

The westward march of these refugees was marked by more 
hardships than that of the earlier bodies, because they were in 
bad physical condition and were in no sense properly equipped. 
Council Bluffs was not reached till November 27. 

The division of the emigrants and their progress was thus 
noted in an interview, printed in the Nauvoo Eagle of July 10, 
with a person who had left Council Bluffs on June 26, coming East. 
The advance company, including the Twelve, with a train of 1000 
wagons, was then encamped on the east bank of the Missouri, the 
men being busy building boats. The second company, 3000 strong, 
were at Mt. Pisgah, recruiting their cattle for a new start. The 
third company had halted at Garden Grove. Between Garden 
Grove and the Mississippi River the Eagle's informant counted 
more than 1000 wagons on their way west. He estimated the total 
number of teams engaged in this movement at about 3700, and the 
number of persons on the road at 12,000. The Eagle added: 
" From 2000 to 3000 have disappeared from Nauvoo in various 
directions, and about 800 or less still remain in Illinois. This com- 
prises the entire Mormon population that once flourished in Han- 
cock County. In their palmy days they probably numbered 15,000 
or 16,000." 

The camp that had been formed at Mt. Pisgah suffered 
severely from the start. Provisions were scarce, and a number 
of families were dependent for food on neighbors who had little 
enough for themselves. Fodder for the cattle gave out, too, and 
in the early spring the only substitute was buds and twigs of trees. 
Snow notes as a calamity the death of his milch cow, which had 
been driven all the way from Ohio. Along with their destitution 
came sickness, and at times during the following winter it seemed 
as if there were not enough of the well to supply the needed nurses. 
So many deaths occurred during that autumn and winter that a 
funeral came to be conducted with little ceremony, and even the 

1 Bancroft's " History of Utah," p. 234, note. 

2B 



370 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



customary burial clothes could not be provided. 1 Elder W. Hunt- 
ington, the presiding officer of the settlement, was among the early 
victims, and Lorenzo Snow, the recent head of the Mormon 
church, succeeded him. During Snow's stay there three of his 
four wives gave birth to children. 

Notwithstanding these depressing circumstances, the camp was 
by no means inactive during the winter. Those who were well 
were kept busy repairing wagons, and making, in a rude way, such 
household articles as were most needed — chairs, tubs, and baskets. 
Parties were sent out to the settlements within reach to work, 
accepting food and clothing as pay, and two elders were selected 
to visit the states in search of contributions. These efforts were 
so successful that about $600 was raised, and the camp sent to 
Brigham Young at Council Bluffs a load of provisions as a New 
Year's gift. 

The usual religious meetings were kept up during the winter, 
and the utility of amusements in such a settlement was not for- 
gotten. Ingenuity was taxed to give variety to the social enter- 
tainments. Snow describes a " party " that he gave in his family 
mansion — "a one-story edifice about fifteen by thirty feet, con- 
structed of logs, with a dirt roof, a ground floor, and a chimney 
made of sod." Many a man compelled to house four wives (one of 
them with three sons by a former husband) in such a mansion 
would have felt excused from entertaining company. But the 
Snows did not. For a carpet the floor was strewn with straw. 
The logs of the sides of the room were concealed with sheets. 
Hollowed turnips provided candelabras, which were stuck around 
the walls and suspended from the roof. The company were enter- 
tained with songs, recitations, conundrums, etc., and all voted that 
they had a very jolly time. 

In the larger camps the travellers were accustomed to make 
what they called "boweries" — large arbors covered with a frame- 
work of poles, and thatched with brush or branches. The making 
of such "boweries " was continued by the Saints in Utah. 

1 " Biography of Lorenzo Snow," p. 90. 



CHAPTER III 



THE MORMON BATTALION 

During the halt of a part of the main body of the Mormons at 
Mt. Pisgah, an incident occurred which has been made the sub- 
ject of a good deal of literature, and has been held up by the Mor- 
mons as a proof both of the severity of the American government 
toward them and of their own patriotism. There is so little ground 
for either of these claims that the story of the Battalion should be 
correctly told. 

When hostilities against Mexico began, early in 1846, the plan 
of campaign designed by the United States authorities comprised 
an invasion of Mexico at two points, by Generals Taylor and Wool, 
and a descent on Santa F6, and thence a march into California. 
This march was to be made by General Stephen F. Kearney, who 
was to command the volunteers raised in Missouri, and the few 
hundred regular troops then at Fort Leavenworth. In gathering 
his force General (then Colonel) Kearney sent Captain J. Allen 
of the First Dragoons to the Mormons at Mt. Pisgah, not with an 
order of any kind, but with a written proposition, dated June 26, 
1846, that he "would accept the service, for twelve months, of four 
or five companies of Mormon men" (each numbering from 73 to 
109), to unite with the Army of the West at Santa Fe, and march 
thence to California, where they would be discharged. These vol- 
unteers were to have the regular volunteers* pay and allowances, 
and permission to retain at their discharge the arms and equipments 
with which they would be provided, the age limit to be between eigh- 
teen and forty-five years. The most practical inducement held 
out to the Mormons to enlist was thus explained : "Thus is offered 
to the Mormon people now — this year — an opportunity of send- 
ing a portion of their young and intelligent men to the ultimate 
destination of their whole people, and entirely at the expense of 

37i 



372 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the United States ; and this advance party can thus pave the way 
and look out the land for their brethren to come after them." 

There was nothing like a " demand " on the Mormons in this 
invitation, and the advantage of accepting it was largely on the 
Mormon side. If it had not been, it would have been rejected. 
That the government was in no stress for volunteers is shown by 
the fact that General Kearney reported to the War Department in 
the following August that he had more troops than he needed, and 
that he proposed to use some of them to reenforce General Wool. 1 

The initial suggestion about the raising of these Mormon vol- 
unteers came from a Mormon source. 2 In the spring of 1846 
Jesse C. Little, a Mormon elder of the Eastern states, visited 
Washington with letters of introduction from Governor Steele of 
New Hampshire and Colonel Thomas L. Kane of Philadelphia, 
hoping to secure from the government a contract to carry provi- 
sions or naval stores to the Pacific coast, and thus pay part of the 
expense of conveying Mormons to California by water. Accord- 
ing to Little, this matter was laid before the cabinet, who proposed 
that he should visit the Mormon camp and raise 1000 picked men 
to make a dash for California overland, while as many more would 
be sent around Cape Horn from the Eastern states. This big 
scheme, according to Mormon accounts, was upset by one of the 
hated Missourians, Senator Thomas H. Benton, whose Macchiavel- 
lian mind had designed the plan of taking from the Mormons 500 
of their best men for the Battalion, thus crippling them while in 
the Indian country. All this part of their account is utterly 
unworthy of belief. If 500 volunteers for the army " crippled" 
the immigrants where they were, what would have been their con- 
dition if 1000 of their number had been hurried on to California? 3 

Aside from the opportunity afforded by General Kearney's 
invitation to send a pioneer band, without expense to themselves, 
to the Pacific coast, the offer gave the Mormons great, and greatly 
needed, pecuniary assistance. P. P. Pratt, on his way East to visit 

1 Chase's "History of the Polk Administration," p. 16. 

2 Tullidge's " Life of Brigham Young," p. 47. 

3 Delegate Bernhisel, in a letter to President Fillmore (December I, 185 1), replying 
to a charge by Judge Brocchus that the 24th of July orators had complained of the con- 
duct of the government in taking the Battalion from them for service against Mexico, 
said, "The government did not take from us a battalion of men," the Mormons furnish- 
ing them in response to a call for volunteers. 



THE MORMON BATTALION 



373 



England with Taylor and Hyde, found the Battalion at Fort Leav- 
enworth, and was sent back to the camp 1 with between $5000 and 
$6000, a part of the Battalion's government allowance. This was 
a godsend where cash was so scarce, as it enabled the commissary 
officers to make purchases in St. Louis, where prices were much 
lower than in western Iowa. 2 John Taylor, in a letter to the Saints 
in Great Britain on arriving there, quoted the acceptance of this 
Battalion as evidence that " the President of the United States is 
favorably disposed to us," and said that their employment in the 
army, as there was no prospect of any fighting, " amounts to the 
same as paying them for going where they were destined to go 
without." 3 

The march of the federal force that went from Santa Fe (where 
the Mormon Battalion arrived in October) to California was a nota- 
ble one, over unexplored deserts, where food was scarce and water 
for long distances unobtainable. Arriving at the junction of the 
Gila and Colorado rivers on December 26, they received there an 
order to march to San Diego, California, and arrived there on Janu- 
ary 29, after a march of over two thousand miles. 

The war in Calif ornia was over at that date, but the Battalion did 
garrison duty at San Luis Rey, and then at Los Angeles. Vari- 
ous propositions for their reenlistment were made to them, but 
their church officers opposed this, and were obeyed except in some 
individual instances. About 1 50 of those who set out from Santa Fe 
were sent back invalided before California was reached, and the 
number mustered out was only about 240. These at once started 
eastward, but, owing to news received concerning the hardships of 
the first Mormons who arrived in Salt Lake Valley, many of them 
decided to remain in California, and a number were hired by Sutter, 
on whose mill-race the first discovery of gold in that state was made. 
Those who kept on reached Salt Lake Valley on October 16, 1847. 
Thirty-two of their number continued their march to Winter Quar- 
ters on the Missouri, where they arrived on December 18. 

Mormon historians not only present the raising of the Battalion 
as a proof of patriotism, but ascribe to the members of that force 

1 "Unexpected as this visit was, a member of my family had been warned in a 
dream, and had predicted my arrival and the day." — Pratt, "Autobiography," p. 384. 

2 " History of Brigham Young," Ms., 1846, p. 150. 
8 Millennial Star, Vol. VIII, p. 117. 



374 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the credit of securing California to the United States, and the dis- 
covery of gold. 1 

When Elder Little left Washington for the West with despatches 
for General Kearney concerning the Mormon enlistments, he was 
accompanied by Colonel Thomas L. Kane, a brother of the famous 
Arctic explorer. On his way West Colonel Kane visited Nauvoo 
while the Hancock County posse were in possession of it, saw the 
expelled Mormons in their camp across the river, followed the 
trail of those who had reached the Missouri, and lay ill among 
them in the unhealthy Missouri bottom in 1847. From that time 
Colonel Kane became one of the most useful agents of the Mormon 
church in the Eastern states, and, as we shall see, performed for 
them services which only a man devoted to the church, but not 
openly a member of it, could have accomplished. 

It was stated at the time that Colonel Kane was baptized by 
Young at Council Bluffs in 1847. His future course gives every 
reason to accept the correctness of this view. He served the Mor- 
mons in the East as a Jesuit would have served his order in earlier 
days in France or Spain. He bore false witness in regard to 
polygamy and to the character of men high in the church as 
unblushingly as a Brigham Young or a Kimball could have done. 
His lecture before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1850 
was highly colored where it stated facts, and so inaccurate in other 
parts that it is of little use to the historian. A Mormon writer who 
denied that Kane was a member of the church offered as proof of 
this the statement that, had Kane been a Mormon, Young would 
have commanded him instead of treating him with so much respect. 
But Young was not a fool, and was quite capable of appreciating 
the value of a secret agent at the federal capital. 

1 "The Mormons have always been disposed to overestimate the value of their ser- 
vices during this period, attaching undue importance to the current rumors of intending 
revolt on the part of the Californians, and of the approach of Mexican troops to recon- 
quer the province. They also claim the credit of having enabled Kearney to sustain his 
authority against the revolutionary pretensions of Fremont. The merit of this claim 
will be apparent to the readers of preceding chapters." — Bancroft, " History of Cali- 
fornia," Vol. V, p. 487. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE CAMPS ON THE MISSOURI 

Mormon accounts of the westward movement from Nauvoo 
represent that the delay which occurred when they reached the 
Missouri River was an interruption of their leaders' plans, attribut- 
ing it to the weakening of their force by the enlistment of the 
Battalion, and the necessity of waiting for the last Mormons who 
were driven out of Nauvoo. But after their experiences in a 
winter march from the Mississippi, with something like a base of 
supplies in reach, it is inconceivable that the Council would have 
led their followers farther into the unknown West that same year, 
when their stores were so nearly exhausted, and there was no 
region before them in which they could make purchases, even if 
they had the means to do so. 

When the Mormons arrived on the Missouri they met with a 
very friendly welcome. They found the land east of the river 
occupied by the Pottawottomi Indians, who had recently been 
removed from their old home in what is now Michigan and north- 
ern Illinois and Indiana ; and the west side occupied by the 
Omahas, who had once "considered all created things as made 
for their peculiar use and benefit," but whom the smallpox and 
the Sioux had many years before reduced to a miserable remnant. 

The Mormons won the heart of the Pottawottomies by giving 
them a concert at their agent's residence. A council followed, at 
which their chief, Pied Riche, surnamed Le Clerc, made an address, 
giving the Mormons permission to cut wood, make improvements, 
and live where they pleased on their lands. 

The principal camp on the Missouri, known as Winter Quar- 
ters, was on the west bank, on what is now the site of Florence, 
Nebraska. A council was held with the Omaha chiefs in the latter 
part of August, and Big Elk, in reply to an address by Brigham 

375 



37^ 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Young, recited their sufferings at the hands of the Sioux, and told 
the whites that they could stay there for two years and have the, 
use of firewood and timber, and that the young men of the Ind- 
ians would watch their cattle and warn them of any danger. In 
return, the Indians asked for the use of teams to draw in their 
harvest, for assistance in housebuilding, ploughing, and black- 
smithing, and that a traffic in goods be established. An agree- 
ment to this effect was put in writing. 

The arrival of party after party of Mormons made an unusually 
busy scene on the river banks. On the east side every hill that 
helped to make up the Council Bluffs was occupied with tents and 
wagons, while the bottom was crowded with cattle and vehicles 
on the way to the west side. Kane counted four thousand head 
of cattle from a single elevation, and says that the Mormon herd 
numbered thirty thousand. Along the banks of the river and 
creeks the women were doing their family washing, while men 
were making boats and superintending in every way the passage 
of the river by some, and the preparations for a stay on the east 
side by others — building huts, breaking the sod for grain, etc. 
The Pottawottomies had cut an approach to the river opposite a 
trading post of the American Fur Company, and established a 
ferry there, and they now did a big business carrying over, in their 
flat-bottom boats, families and their wagons, and the cows and 
sheep. As for the oxen, they were forced to swim, and great times 
the boys had, driving them to the bank, compelling them to take 
the initial plunge, and then guiding them across by taking the 
lead astride some animal's back. 

Sickness in the camps began almost as soon as they were 
formed. " Misery Bottom," as it was then called, received the rich 
deposit brought down by the river in the spring, and, when the river 
retired into its banks, became a series of mud flats, described as 
" mere quagmires of black dirt, stretching along for miles, unvaried 
except by the limbs of half-buried carrion, tree trunks, or by 
occasional yellow pools of what the children called frog's spawn; 
all together steaming up vapors redolent of the savor of death." 
In the previous year — not an unusually bad one — one-ninth of 
the Indian population on these flats had died in two months. The 
Mormons suffered not only from the malaria of the river bottom, 
but from the breaking up of many acres of the soil in their farm- 
ing operations. 



THE CAMPS ON THE MISSOURI 



377 



The illness was diagnosed as the usual malarial fever, accom- 
panied in many cases with scorbutic symptoms, which they called 
"black canker," due to a lack of vegetable food. In and around 
Winter Quarters there were more than 600 burials before cold 
weather set in, and 334 out of a population of 3483 were reported 
on the sick list as late as December. The Papillon Camp, on the 
Little Butterfly River, was a deadly site. Kane, who had the 
fever there, in passing by the place earlier in the season had 
opened an Indian mound, leaving a deep trench through it. "My 
first airing," he says, "upon my convalescence, took me to the 
mound, which, probably to save digging, had been readapted to 
its original purpose. In this brief interval they had filled the 
trench with bodies, and furrowed the ground with graves around 
it, like the ploughing of a field." 

But amid such affliction, in which cows went unmilked and 
corpses became loathsome before men could be found to bury them, 
preparations continued at all the camps for the winter's stay and 
next year's supplies. Brigham Young, writing from Winter Quar- 
ters on January 6, 1847, to tne elders in England, said : "We have 
upward of seven hundred houses in our miniature city, composed 
mostly of logs in the body, covered with puncheon, straw, and dirt, 
which are warm and wholesome ; a few are composed of turf, wil- 
lows, straw, etc., which are comfortable this winter, but will not 
endure the thaws, rain, and sunshine of spring." 1 This city was 
divided into twenty-two wards, each presided over by a Bishop. 
The principal buildings were the Council House, thirty-two by 
twenty-four feet, and Dr. Richard's house, called the Octagon, 
and described as resembling the heap of earth piled up over pota- 
toes to shield them from frost. In this Octagon the High Council 
held most of their meetings. A great necessity was a flouring mill, 
and accordingly they sent to St. Louis for the stones and gearing, 
and, under Brigham Young's personal direction as a carpenter, the 
mill was built and made ready for use in January. The money sent 
back by the Battalion was expended in St. Louis for sugar and other 
needed articles. 

As usual with the pictures sent to Europe, Young's description 
of the comfort of the winter camp was exaggerated. P. P. Pratt, 
who arrived at Winter Quarters from his mission to Europe on 
April 8, 1847, savs : — 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. IX, p. 97. 



378 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" I found my family all alive, and dwelling in a log cabin. They had, however, 
suffered much from cold, hunger, and sickness. They had oftentimes lived for 
several days on a little corn meal, ground in a hand mill, with no other food. 
One of the family was then lying very sick with the scurvy — a disease which had 
been very prevalent in camp during the winter, and of which many had died. I 
found, on inquiry, that the winter had been very severe, the snow deep, and con- 
sequently that all my four horses were lost, and I afterward ascertained that out 
of twelve cows, I had but seven left, and, out of some twelve or fourteen oxen, 
only four or five were saved." 

If this was the plight in which the spring found the family of 
one of the Twelve, imagination can picture the suffering of the 
hundreds who had arrived with less provision against the rigors of 
such a winter climate. 



CHAPTER V 



THE PIONEER TRIP ACROSS THE PLAINS 

During the winter of 1 846-1 847 preparations were under way 
to send an organization of pioneers across the plains and beyond 
the Rocky Mountains, to select a new dwelling-place for the Saints. 
The only "revelation " to Brigham Young found in the " Book of 
Doctrine and Covenants " is a direction about the organization and 
mission of this expedition. It was dated January 14, 1847, and it 
directed the organization of the pioneers into companies, with cap- 
tains of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, and a president and two 
counsellors at their head, under charge of the Twelve. Each com- 
pany was to provide its own equipment, and to take seeds and 
farming implements. " Let every man," it commanded, " use all 
his influence and property to remove this people to the place 
where the Lord shall locate a Stake of Zion." The power of the 
head of the church was guarded by a threat that "if any man 
shall seek to build up himself he shall have no power," and the 
"revelation " ended, like a rustic's letter, with the words, " So no 
more at present," "amen and amen " being added. 

In accordance with this command, on April 14 1 a pioneer band 
of volunteers set out to blaze a path, so to speak, across the plains 
and mountains for the main body which was to follow. 

It is difficult to-day, when this " Far West" is in possession of 
the agriculturist, the merchant, and the miner, dotted with cities 
and flourishing towns, and cut in all directions by railroads, which 
have made pleasure routes for tourists of the trail over which the 
pioneers of half a century ago toiled with difficulty and danger, to 
realize how vague were the ideas of even the best informed in the 
thirties and forties about the physical characteristics of that country 
and its future possibilities. The conception of the latter may be 

1 Date given in the General Epistle of December 23, 1847. Others say April 7. 

379 



38o 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



best illustrated by quoting Washington Irving' s idea, as expressed 
in his "Astoria," written in 1836: — 

"Such is the nature of this immense wilderness of the far West; which 
apparently defies cultivation and the habitation of civilized life. Some portion 
of it, along the rivers, may partially be subdued by agriculture, others may form 
vast pastural tracts like those of the East ; but it is to be feared that a great part 
of it will form a lawless interval between the abodes of civilized man, like the 
wastes of the ocean or the deserts of Arabia, and, like them, be subject to the 
depredations of the marauders. There may spring up new and mongrel races, 
like new formations in zoology, the amalgamation of the ' debris ' and ' abrasions ' 
of former races, civilized and savage ; the remains of broken and extinguished 
tribes ; the descendants of wandering hunters and trappers ; of fugitives from 
the Spanish-American frontiers ; of adventurers and desperadoes of every class 
and country, yearly ejected from the bosom of society into the wilderness. . . . 
Some may gradually become pastoral hordes, like those rude and migratory 
people, half shepherd, half warrior, who, with their flocks and herds, roam the 
plains of upper Asia ; but others, it is to be apprehended, will become predatory 
bands, mounted on the fleet steeds of the prairies, with the open plains for their 
marauding grounds, and the mountains for their retreats and lurking places. 
There they may resemble those great hordes of the North, 'Gog and Magog with 
their bands,' that haunted the gloomy imaginations of the prophets — ' A great 
company and a mighty host, all riding upon horses, and warring upon those 
nations which were at rest, and dwelt peaceably, and had gotten cattle and 
goods. 1 " 

" What about the country between the Missouri River and the 
Pacific," asked a father living near the Missouri, of his son on his 
return from California across the plains in 185 1. "Oh, it's of no 
account," was the reply ; " the soil is poor, sandy, and too dry to 
produce anything but this little short grass [afterward learned 
to be so rich in nutriment], and, when it does rain, in three hours 
afterward you could not tell that it had rained at all." 1 

But while this distant West was still so unknown to the settled 
parts of the country, these Mormon pioneers were by no means the 
first to traverse it, as the records of the journeyings of Lewis and 
Clark, Ezekiel Williams, General W. H. Ashley, Wilson Price Hunt, 
Major S. H. Long, Captain W. Sublette, Bonneville, Fremont, and 
others show. 

The pioneer band of the Mormons consisted of 143 men, three 
women (wives of Brigham and Lorenzo Young and H. C. Kimball), 
and two children. They took with them seventy-three wagons. Their 



Nebraska Historical Society papers. 



THE PIONEER TRIP ACROSS THE PLAINS 



381 



chief officers were Brigham Young, Lieutenant General ; Stephen 
Markham, Colonel; John Pack, First Major; Shadrack Roundy, 
Second Major, two captains of hundreds, and fourteen captains of 
companies. The order of march was intelligently arranged, with a 
view to the probability of meeting Indians who, if not dangerous to 
life, had little regard for personal property. The Indians of the 
Platte region were notorious thieves, but had not the reputation as 
warriors of their more northern neighbors. The regulations re- 
quired that each private should walk constantly beside his wagon, 
leaving it only by his officer's command. In order to make as 
compact a force as possible, two wagons were to move abreast 
whenever this could be done. Every man was to keep his weapons 
loaded, and special care was insisted upon that the caps, flints, and 
locks should be in good condition. They had with them one small 
cannon mounted on wheels. 

The bugle for rising sounded at 5 a.m., and two hours were 
allowed for breakfast and prayers. At night each man was to 
retire into his wagon for prayer at 8.30 o'clock, and for the night's 
rest at 9. The night camp was formed by drawing up the wagons 
in a semicircle, with the river in the rear, if they camped near its 
bank, or otherwise with the wagons in a circle, a fore wheel of one 
touching the hind wheel of the next. In this way an effective 
corral for the animals was provided within. 

At the head of Grand Island, on April 30, they had their first 
sight of buffaloes. A hunting party was organized at once, and a 
herd of sixty-five of the animals was pursued for several miles in 
full view of the camp (when game and hunters were not hidden by 
the dust), and so successfully that eleven buffaloes were killed. 

The first alarm of Indians occurred on May 4, when scouts 
reported a band of about four hundred a few miles ahead. The 
wagons were at once formed five abreast, the cannon was fired as 
a means of alarm, and the company advanced in close formation. 
The Indians did not attack them, but they set fire to the prairie, 
and this caused a halt. A change of wind the next morning and 
an early shower checked the flames, and the column moved on 
again at daybreak. During the next few days the buffaloes were 
seen in herds of hundreds of thousands on both sides of the Platte. 
So numerous were they that the company had to stop at times and 
let gangs of the animals pass on either side, and several calves 



382 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



were captured alive. 1 With or near the buffaloes were seen ante- 
lopes and wolves. 

At Grand Island the question of their further route was care- 
fully debated. There was a well-known trail to Fort Laramie on 
the south side of the river, used by those who set out from Inde- 
pendence, Missouri, for Oregon. Good pasture was assured on 
that side, but it was argued that, if this party made a new trail 
along the north side of the river, the Mormons would have what 
might be considered a route of their own, separated from other 
westward emigrants. This view prevailed, and the course then 
selected became known in after years as the Mormon Trail (some- 
times called the " Old Mormon Road ") ; the line of the Union 
Pacific Railroad follows it for many miles. 

Their decision caused them a good deal of anxiety about forage 
for their animals before they reached Fort Laramie. It had not 
rained at the latter point for two years, and the drought, together 
with the vast herds of buffaloes and the Indian fires, made it for 
days impossible to find any pasture except in small patches. When 
the fort was reached, they had fed their animals not only a large 
part of their grain, but some of their crackers and other bread- 
stuff, and the beasts were so weak that they could scarcely drag 
the wagons. 

During the previous winter the church officers had procured 
for their use from England two sextants and other instruments 
needed for taking solar observations, two barometers, thermome- 
ters, etc., and these were used by Orson Pratt daily to note their 
progress. 2 Two of the party also constructed a sort of pedometer, 
and, after leaving Fort Laramie, a mile-post was set up every ten 
miles, for the guidance of those who were to follow. 

In the camp made on May 10 the first of the Mormon post- 
offices on the plains was established. Into a board six inches wide 
and eighteen long, a cut was made with a saw, and in this cut 
a letter was placed. After nailing on cleats to retain the letter, 
and addressing the board to the officers of the next company, the 
board was nailed to a fifteen-foot pole, which was set firmly in the 

1 " The vast herds of buffalo were often in our way, and we were under the neces- 
sity of sending out advance guards to clear the track so that our teams might pass." — 
Erastus Snow, "Address to the Pioneers," in 1880. 

2 His diary of the trip will be found in the Millennial Star for 1849-1850, full of 
interesting details, but evidently edited for English readers. 



THE PIONEER TRIP ACROSS THE PLAINS 



383 



ground near the trail, and left to its fate. How successful this 
attempt at communication proved is not stated, but similar means 
of communication were in use during the whole period of Mormon 
migration. Sometimes a copy of the camp journal was left con- 
spicuously in the crotch of a tree, for the edification of the next 
camp, and scores of the buffaloes' skulls that dotted the plains 
were marked with messages and set up along the trail. 

The weakness of the 'draught animals made progress slow at 
this time, and marches of from 4 to 7 miles a day were recorded. 
The men fared better, game being abundant. Signs of Indians 
were seen from time to time, and precautions were constantly taken 
to prevent a stampede of the animals; but no open attack was 
made. A few Indians visited the camp on May 21, and gave 
assurances of their friendliness ; and on the 24th they had a visit from 
a party of thirty-five Dakotas (or Sioux), who tendered a written 
letter of recommendation in French from one of the agents of the 
American Fur Company. The Mormons had to grant their 
request for permission to camp with them over night, which 
meant also giving them supper and breakfast — no small demand 
on their hospitality when the capacity of the Indian stomach is 
understood. 

Little occurred during May to vary the monotony of the journey. 
On the afternoon of June 1 they arrived nearly opposite Fort 
Laramie and the ruins of old Fort Platte, a point 522 miles from 
Winter Quarters, and 509 from Great Salt Lake. The so-called 
forts were in fact trading posts, established by the fur companies, 
both as points of supply for their trappers and trading places with 
the Indians for peltries. On the evening of their arrival at this 
point they had a visit from members of a party of Mormons gath- 
ered principally from Mississippi and southern Illinois, who had 
passed the winter in Pueblo, and were waiting to join the emigrants 
from Winter Quarters. 

The Platte, usually a shallow stream, was at that place 108 
yards wide, and too deep for wading. Brigham Young and some 
others crossed over the next morning in a sole-leather skiff which 
formed a part of their equipment, and were kindly welcomed by 
the commandant. There they learned that it would be impractica- 
ble — or at least very difficult — to continue along the north bank 
of the Platte, and they accordingly hired a flatboat to ferry the 



3§4 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



company and their wagons across. The crossing began on June 3, 
and on an average four wagons were ferried over in an hour. 

Advantage was taken of this delay to set up a bellows and 
forge, and make needed repairs to the wagons. At the Fort the 
Mormons learned that their old object of hatred in Missouri, 
ex-Governor Boggs, had recently passed by with a company of 
emigrants bound for the Pacific coast. Young's company came 
across other Missourians on the plains ; but no hostilities ensued, 
the Missourians having no object now to interfere with the Saints, 
and the latter contenting themselves by noting in their diaries the 
profanity and quarrelsomeness of their old neighbors. 

The journey was resumed at noon on June 4, along the Oregon 
trail. A small party of the Mormons was sent on in advance to 
the spot where the Oregon trail crossed the Platte, 124 miles west 
of Fort Laramie. This crossing was generally made by fording, 
but the river was too high for this, and the sole-leather boat, which 
would carry from 1500 to 1800 pounds, was accordingly em- 
ployed. The men with this boat reached the crossing in advance 
of the first party of Oregon emigrants whom they had encountered, 
and were employed by the latter to ferry their goods across while 
the empty wagons were floated. This proved a happy enterprise 
for the Mormons. The drain on their stock of grain and provisions 
had by this time so reduced their supply that they looked forward 
with no little anxiety to the long march. The Oregon party 
offered liberal pay in flour, sugar, bacon, and coffee for the use of 
the boat, and the terms were gladly accepted, although most of the 
persons served were Missourians. When the main body of pio- 
neers started on from that point, they left ten men with the boat 
to maintain the ferry until the next company from Winter Quarters 
should come up. 1 

The Mormons themselves were delayed at this crossing until 
June 19, making a boat on which a wagon could cross without 
unloading. During the first few days after leaving the North 
Platte grass and water were scarce. On June 21 they reached the 
Sweet Water, and, fording it, encamped within sight of Indepen- 
dence Rock, near the upper end of Devil's Gater^ 

1 " The Missourians paid them $1.50 for each wagon and load, and paid it in flour 
at $2.50 ; yet flour was worth $10 per hundredweight, at least at that point. They 
divided their earnings among the camp equally." — Tullidge, "Life of Brigham 
Young," p. 165. 



CHAPTER VI 



FROM THE ROCKIES TO SALT LAKE VALLEY 

More than one day's march was now made without finding 
water or grass. Banks of snow were observed on the near-by 
elevations, and overcoats were very comfortable at night. On 
June 26 they reached the South Pass, where the waters running 
to the Atlantic and to the Pacific separate. They found, however, 
no well-marked dividing ridge — only, as Pratt described it, " a 
quietly undulating plain or prairie, some fifteen or twenty miles in 
length and breadth, thickly covered with wild sage." There were 
good pasture and plenty of water, and they met there a small party 
who were making the journey from Oregon to the states on horse- 
back. 

All this time the leaders of the expedition had no definite view 
of their final stopping-place. Whenever Young was asked by any 
of his party, as they trudged along, what locality they were aiming 
for, his only reply was that he would recognize the site of their 
new home when he saw it, and that they would surely go on as 
the Lord would direct them. 1 

While they were camping near South Pass, an incident occurred 
which narrowly escaped changing the plans of the Lord, if he had 
already selected Salt Lake Valley. One of the men whom the 
company met there was a voyager whose judgment about a desir- 
able site for a settlement naturally seemed worthy of consideration. 
This was T. L. Smith, better known as " Pegleg " Smith. He 
had been a companion of Jedediah S. Smith, one of Ashley's com- 
pany of trappers, who had started from Great Salt Lake in August, 
1826, and made his way to San Gabriel Mission in California, and 
thence eastward, reaching the Lake again in the spring of 1827. 
" Pegleg " had a trading post on Bear River above Soda Springs (in 
the present Idaho). He gave the Mormons a great deal of infor- 



1 Erastus Snow's "Address to the Pioneers," 1880. 
2C 385 



386 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



mation about all the valley which lay before them, and to the north 
and south. " He earnestly advised us," says Erastus Snow, "to 
direct our course northwestward from Bridger, and make our way 
into Cache Valley; and he so far made an impression upon the 
camp that we were induced to enter into an engagement with him 
to meet us at a certain time and place two weeks afterward, to 
pilot our company into that country. But for some reason, which 
to this day never to my knowledge has been explained, he failed 
to meet us; and I have ever recognized his failure to do so as a 
providence of an all-wise God." 1 

" Pegleg's " reputation was as bad as that of any of those reck- 
less trappers of his day, and perhaps, if the Mormons had known 
more about him, they would have given less heed to his advice, and 
counted less on his keeping his engagement. 

With the returning Oregonians they also made the acquaint- 
ance of Major Harris, an old trapper and hunter in California and 
Oregon, who gave them little encouragement about Salt Lake Val- 
ley, as a place of settlement, principally because of the lack of 
timber. Two days later they met Colonel James Bridger, an 
authority on that part of the country, whose "fort" was widely 
known. Young told him that he proposed to take a look at Great 
Salt Lake Valley with a view to its settlement. Bridger affirmed 
that his experiments had more than convinced him that corn would 
not grow in those mountains, and, when Young expressed doubts 
about this, he offered to give the Mormon President $1000 for 
the first ear raised in that valley. Next they met a mountaineer 
named Goodyear, who had passed the last winter on the site of what 
is now Ogden, Utah, where he had tried without success to raise 
a little grain and a few vegetables. He told of severe cold in 
winter and drought in summer. Irrigation had not suggested 
itself to a man who had a large part of a continent in which to 
look for a more congenial farm site. 

Mormons in all later years have said that they were guided to 
the Salt Lake Valley in fulfilment of the prediction of Joseph 
Smith that they would have to flee to the Rocky Mountains. But 
in their progress across the plains the leaders of the pioneers were 
not indifferent to any advice that came in their way, and in a 
manuscript "History of Brigham Young" (1847), quoted by H. 

1 "Address to the Pioneers," 1880. 



FROM THE ROCKIES TO SALT LAKE VALLEY 387 



H. Bancroft, is the following entry, which may indicate the first 
suggestion that turned their attention from " California " to 
Utah: " On the 15th of June met James H. Grieve, William 
Tucker, James Woodrie, James Bouvoir, and six other Frenchmen, 
from whom we learned that Mr. Bridger was located about three 
hundred miles west, that the mountaineers could ride to Salt 
Lake from Fort Bridger in two days, and that the Utah country 
was beautiful." 1 

The pioneers resumed their march on June 29, over a desolate 
country, travelling seventeen miles without finding grass or water, 
until they made their night camp on the Big Sandy. There they 
encountered clouds of mosquitoes, which made more than one sub- 
sequent camping-place very uncomfortable. A march of eight 
miles the next morning brought them to Green River. Finding 
this stream 180 yards wide, and deep and swift, they stopped long 
enough to make two rafts, on which they successfully ferried over 
all their wagons without unloading them. 

At this point the pioneers met a brother Mormon who had made 
the journey to California round the Horn, and had started east 
from there to meet the overland travellers. He had an interesting 
story to tell, the points of which, in brief, were as follows : — 

A conference of Mormons, held in New York City on Novem- 
ber 12, 1845, resolved to move in a body to the new home of the 
Saints. This emigration scheme was placed in charge of Samuel 
Brannan, a native of Maine, and an elder in the church, who was 
then editing the Xezv York Prophet, and preaching there. Why so 
important a project was confided to Brannan seems a mystery, in 
view of P. P. Pratt's statement that, as early as the previous Jan- 
uary, he had discovered that Brannan was among certain elders 
who " had been corrupting the Saints by introducing among them 
all manner of false doctrines and immoral practices"; he was 
afterward disfellowshipped at Nauvoo. By Pratt's advice he im- 
mediately went to that city, and was restored to full standing in the 
church, as any bad man always was when he acknowledged sub- 
mission to the church authorities. 2 Plenty of emigrants offered 
themselves under Orson Pratt's call, but of the 300 first applicants 
for passage only about 60 had money enough to pay their expenses, 

1 Bancroft's " History of Utah," p. 257. 

2 Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 374. 



388 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



although it was estimated that $75 would cover the outlay for 
the trip. Brannan chartered the Brooklyn, a ship of 450 tons, and 
on February 4, 1846, she sailed with 70 men, 68 women, and 100 
children. 1 

The voyage to San Francisco ended on July 31. Ten deaths 
and two births occurred during the trip, and four of the company, 
including two elders and one woman, had to be excommunicated 
"for their wicked and licentious conduct." Three others were 
dealt with in the same way as soon as the company landed. 2 On 
landing they found the United States in possession of the country, 

which led to Brannan's reported remark, " There is that d d 

flag again." The men of the party, some of whom had not paid all 
their passage money, at once sought work, but the company did 
not hold together. Before the end of the year some 20 more 
" went astray," in church parlance ; some decided to remain on the 
coast when they learned that the church was to make Salt Lake 
Valley its headquarters, and some time later about 140 reached 
Utah and took up their abode there. 

Brannan fell from grace and was pronounced by P. P. Pratt 
"a corrupt and wicked man." While he was getting his expedi- 
tion in shape, he sent to the church authorities in the West a copy 
of an agreement which he said he had made with A. G. Benson, 
an alleged agent of Postmaster General Kendall. Benson was 
represented as saying that, unless the Mormon leaders signed an 
agreement, to which President Polk was a " silent partner," by 
which they would " transfer to A. G. Benson and Co., and to their 
heirs and assigns, the odd number of all the lands and town lots 
they may acquire in the country where they settle," the President 
would order them to be dispersed. This seems to have been too 
transparent a scheme to deceive Young, and the agreement was 
not signed. 

The march of the pioneers was resumed on July 3. That even- 
ing they were told that those who wished to return eastward to 
meet their families, who were perhaps five hundred miles back with 
the second company, could do so ; but only five of them took advan- 
tage of this permission. The event of Sunday, July 4, was the 
arrival of thirteen members of the Battalion, who had pushed on in 

1 Bancroft's figures, " History of California," Vol. V, Chap. 20. 

2 Brannan's letter, Millennial Star, Vol. IX, pp. 306-307. 



FROM THE ROCKIES TO SALT LAKE VALLEY 389 



advance of the main body of those who were on the way from 
Pueblo, in order that they might recover some horses stolen from 
them, which they were told were at Bridger's Fort. They said that 
the main body of 140 were near at hand. This company had been 
directed in their course by instructions sent* to them by Brigham 
Young from a point near Fort Laramie. 

The hardships of the trip had told on the pioneers, and a num- 
ber of them were now afflicted with what they called " mountain 
fever." They attributed this to the clouds of dust that enveloped 
the column of wagons when in motion, and to the decided change 
of temperature from day to night. For six weeks, too, most of 
them had been without bread, living on the meat provided by the 
hunters, and saving the little flour that was left for the sick. 

The route on July 5 kept along the right bank of the Green 
River for about three miles, and then led over the bluffs and across 
a sandy, waterless plain for sixteen miles, to the left bank of 
Black's Fork, where they camped for the night. The two follow- 
ing days took them across this Fork several times, but, although 
fording was not always comfortable, the stream added salmon 
trout to their menu. On the 7th the party had a look at Bridger's 
Fort, of which they had heard often. Orson Pratt described it at 
the time as consisting " of two adjoining log houses, dirt roofs, and 
a small picket yard of logs set in the ground, and about eight feet 
high. The number of men, squaws, and half-breed children in 
these houses and lodges may be about fifty or sixty." 

At the camp, half a mile from the fort, that night ice formed. 
The next day the blacksmiths were kept busy repairing wagons 
and shoeing horses in preparation for a trail through the moun- 
tains. On the 9th and 10th they passed over a hilly country, 
camping on Beaver River on the night of the 10th. 

The fever had compelled several halts on account of the con- 
dition of the patients, and on the 12th it was found that Brigham 
Young was too ill to travel. In order not to lose time, Orson 
Pratt, with forty-three men and twenty-three wagons, was directed 
to push on into Salt Lake Valley, leaving a trail that the others 
could follow. From the information obtainable at Fort Bridger it 
was decided that the canon leading into the valley would be found 
impassable on account of high water, and that they should direct 
their course over the mountains. 



390 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



These explorers set out on July 14, travelling down Red Fork, a 
small stream which ran through a narrow valley, whose sides in 
places were from eight hundred to twelve hundred feet high, — red 
sandstone walls, perpendicular or overhanging. This route was a 
rough one, requiring frequent fordings of the stream, and they did 
well to advance thirteen miles that day. On the 15th they discov- 
ered a mountain trail that had been recommended to them, but it 
was a mere trace left by wagons that had passed over it a year 
before. They came now to the roughest country they had found, 
and it became necessary to send sappers in advance to open a road 
before the wagons could pass over it. Almost discouraged, Pratt 
turned back on foot the next day, to see if he could not find a better 
route ; but he was soon convinced that only the one before them 
led in the direction they were to take. The wagons were advanced 
only four and three-quarters miles that day, even the creek bottom 
being so covered with a growth of willows that to cut through 
these was a tiresome labor. Pratt and a companion, during the day, 
climbed a mountain, which they estimated to be about two thousand 
feet high, but they only saw, before and around them, hills piled on 
hills and mountains on mountains, — the outlines of the Wahsatch 
and Uinta ranges. 

On Monday, the 18th, Pratt again acted as advance explorer, 
and went ahead with one companion. Following a ravine on 
horseback for four miles, they then dismounted and climbed to an 
elevation from which, in the distance, they saw a level prairie 
which they thought could not be far from Great Salt Lake. The 
whole party advanced only six and a quarter miles that day and 
six the next. 

One day later Erastus Snow came up with them, and Pratt 
took him along as a companion in his advance explorations. They 
discovered a point where the travellers of the year before had 
ascended a hill to avoid a canon through which a creek dashed 
rapidly. Following in their predecessors' footsteps, when they 
arrived at the top of this hill there lay stretched out before them 
" a broad, open valley about twenty miles wide and thirty long, at 
the north end of which the waters of the Great Salt Lake glis- 
tened in the sunbeams." Snow's account of their first view of the 
valley and lake is as follows : — 



FROM THE ROCKIES TO SALT LAKE VALLEY 391 



" The thicket down the narrows, at the mouth of the canon, was so dense that 
we could not penetrate through it. I crawled for some distance on my hands and 
knees through this thicket, until I was compelled to return, admonished to by the 
rattle of a snake which lay coiled up under my nose, having almost put my hand on 
him ; but as he gave me the friendly warning, I thanked him and retreated. We 
raised on to a high point south of the narrows, where we got a view of the Great 
Salt Lake and this valley, and each of us, without saying a word to the other, 
instinctively, as if by inspiration, raised our hats from our heads, and then, 
swinging our hats, shouted, ' Hosannah to God and the Lamb ! ' We could see 
the canes down in the valley, on what is now called Mill Creek, which looked 
like inviting grain, and thitherward we directed our course." 1 

Having made an inspection of the valley, the two explorers 
rejoined their party about ten o'clock that evening. The next 
day, with great labor, a road was cut through the canon down 
to the valley, and on July 22 Pratt's entire company camped on 
City Creek, below the present Emigration Street in Salt Lake 
City. The next morning, after sending word of their discovery to 
Brigham Young, the whole party moved some two miles farther 
north, and there, after prayer, the work of putting in a crop was 
begun. The necessity of irrigation was recognized at once. " We 
found the land so dry," says Snow, " that to plough it was impossi- 
ble, and in attempting to do so some of the ploughs were broken. 
We therefore had to distribute the water over the land before it 
could be worked." When the rest of the pioneers who had re- 
mained with Young reached the valley the next day, they found 
about six acres of potatoes and other vegetables already planted. 

While Apostles like Snow might have been as transported 
with delight over the aspect of the valley as he professed to be, 
others of the party could see only a desolate, treeless plain, with 
sage brush supplying the vegetation. To the women especially 
the outlook was most depressing. 

1 "Address to the Pioneers," 1880. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES — LAST DAYS ON THE MISSOURI 

When the pioneers set out from the Missouri, instructions were 
left for the organization of similar companies who were to follow 
their trail, without waiting to learn their ultimate destination or how 
they fared on the way. These companies were in charge of promi- 
nent men like Parley P. Pratt, John Taylor, Bishop Hunter, Daniel 
Spencer, who succeeded Smith as mayor of Nauvoo, and J. M. 
Grant, the first mayor of Salt Lake City after its incorporation. 

P. P. Pratt set out early in June, as soon as he could get his 
wagons and equipment in order, for Elk Horn River, where a sort 
of rendezvous was established, and a rough ferry boat put in opera- 
tion. Hence started about the Fourth of July the big company 
which has been called " the first emigration." It consisted, accord- 
ing to the most trustworthy statistics, of 1553 persons, equipped with 
566 wagons, 2213 oxen, 124 horses, 887 cows, 358 sheep, 35 
hogs, and 716 chickens. Pratt had brought back from England 
469 sovereigns, collected as tithing, which were used in equipping 
the first parties for Utah. This company had at its head, as 
president, Brigham Young's brother John, with P. P. Pratt as chief 
adviser. 

Nothing more serious interrupted the movement of these hun- 
dreds of emigrants than dissatisfaction with Pratt, upsets, broken 
wagons, and the occasional straying of cattle, and all arrived in the 
valley in the latter part of September, Pratt's division on the 25th. 

The company which started on the return trip with Young on 
August 26 embraced those Apostles who had gone West with him, 
some others of the pioneers, and most of the members of the Bat- 
talion who had joined them, and whose families were still on the 
banks of the Missouri. The eastward trip was made interesting by 
the meetings with the successive companies who were on their way 

392 



THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES 



393 



to the Salt Lake Valley. Early in September some Indians stole 
48 of their horses, and ten weeks later 200 Sioux charged their 
camp, but there was no loss of life. 

On the 19th of October the party were met by a mounted com- 
pany who had left Winter Quarters to offer any aid that might be 
needed, and were escorted to that camp. They arrived there on 
October 31, where they were welcomed by their families, and 
feasted as well as the supplies would permit. 

The winter of 1 847-1 848 was employed by Young and his asso- 
ciates in completing the church organization, mapping out a scheme 
of European immigration, and preparing for the removal of the 
remaining Mormons to Salt Lake Valley. 

That winter was much milder than its predecessor, and the 
health of the camps was improved, due, in part, to the better physi- 
cal condition of their occupants. On the west side of the river, 
however, troubles had arisen with the Omahas, who complained to 
the government that the Mormons were killing off the game and 
depleting their lands of timber. The new-comers were accordingly 
directed to recross the river, and it was in this way that the camp 
near Council Bluffs in 1848 secured its principal population. In 
Mormon letters of that date the name Winter Quarters is some- 
times applied to the settlement east of the river generally known 
as Kanesville. 

The programme then arranged provided for the removal in the 
spring of 1848 to Salt Lake Valley of practically all Mormons who 
remained on the Missouri, leaving only enough to look after the 
crops there and to maintain a forwarding point for emigrants from 
Europe and the Eastern states. The legislature of Iowa by request 
organized a county embracing the camps on the east side of the 
river. There seems to have been an idea in the minds of some of 
the Mormons that they might effect a permanent settlement in 
western Iowa. Orson Pratt, in a general epistle to the Saints 
in Europe, encouraging emigration, dated August 15, 1848, said, 
" A great, extensive, and rich tract of country has also been, by 
the providence of God, put in the possession of the Saints in the 
western borders of Iowa," which the Saints would have the first 
chance to purchase, at five shillings per acre. A letter from 
G. A. Smith and E. T. Benson to O. Pratt, dated December 20 in 
that year, told of the formation of a company of 860 members to 



394 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



enclose an additional tract of 1 1,000 acres, in shares of from 5 to 80 
acres, and of the laying out of two new cities, ten miles north and 
south. Orson Hyde set up a printing-press there, and for some 
% time published the Frontier Guardian. But wiser counsel pre- 
vailed, and by 1853 most of the emigrants from Nauvoo had passed 
on to Utah, 1 and Linforth found Kanesville in 1853 "very dirty 
and unhealthy," and full of gamblers, lawyers, and dealers in 
"bargains," the latter made up principally of the outfits of dis- 
couraged immigrants who had given up the trip at that point. 

Young himself took charge of the largest body that was to 
cross the plains in 1848. The preparations were well advanced 
by the first of May, and on the 24th he set out for Elk Horn (com- 
monly called " The Horn ") where the organization of the column 
was to be made. The travellers were divided into two large com- 
panies, the first four "hundreds" comprising 1229 persons and 
397 wagons ; the second section, led by H. C. Kimball, 662 persons 
and 226 wagons; and the third, under Elders W. Richards and 
A. Lyman, about 300 wagons. A census of the first two com- 
panies, made by the clerk of the camp, showed that their equipment 
embraced the following items : horses, 131; mules, 44; oxen, 2012; 
cows and other cattle, 13 17; sheep, 654; pigs, 237; chickens, 904; 
cats, 54; dogs, 134; goats, 3; geese, 10; ducks, 5; hives of bees, 
5 ; doves, 1 1 ; and one squirrel. 2 

The expense of fitting out these companies was necessarily 
large, and the heads of the church left at Kanesville a debt 
amounting to $3600, "without any means being provided for its 
payment." 3 

President Young's company began its actual westward march 
on June 5, and the last detachment got away about the 25th. They 
reached the site of Salt Lake City in September. The incidents 
of the trip were not more interesting than those of the previous 
year, and only four deaths occurred on the way. 

1 On September 21, 185 1, the First Presidency sent a letter to the Saints who were 
still in Iowa, directing them all to come to Salt Lake Valley, and saying : " What are you 
waiting for? Have you any good excuse for not coming? No. You have all of you 
unitedly a far better chance than we had when we started as pioneers to find this place." 
— Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 29. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 319. 3 Ibid ^ Vol. XI, p. 14. 



BOOK VI 



IN UTAH 

CHAPTER I 
THE FOUNDING OF SALT LAKE CITY 

The first white men to enter what is now Utah were a part of 
the force of Coronado, under Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, 
if the reader of the evidence decides that their journey from Zuni 
took them, in 1540, across the present Utah border line. 1 A more 
definite account has been preserved of a second exploration, which 
left Santa Fe in 1776, led by two priests, Dominguez and Escalante, 
in search of a route to the California coast. A two months' march 
brought them to a lake, called Timpanogos by the natives — now 
Utah Lake on the map — where they were told of another lake, 
many leagues in extent, whose waters were so salt that they made 
the body itch when wet with them ; but they turned to the south- 
west without visiting it. Lahontan's report of the discovery of a 
body of bad-tasting water on the western side of the continent in 
1689 i s not accepted as more than a part of an imaginary narra- 
tive. S. A. Ruddock asserted that, in 1 821, he with a trading 
party made a journey from Council Bluffs to Oregon by way of 
Santa Fe and Great Salt Lake. 2 

Bancroft mentions this claim " for what it is worth," but awards 
the honor of the discovery of the lake, as the earliest authenticated, 
to James Bridger, the noted frontiersman who, some twelve years 
later, built his well-known trading fort on Green River. Bridger, 
with a party of trappers who had journeyed west from the Missouri 

1 See Bancroft's "History of Utah," Chap. 1. 

2 House Report, No. 213, 1st Session, 19th Congress. 

395 



6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



with Henry and Ashley in 1824, got into a discussion that winter 
with his fellows, while they were camped on Bear River, about the 
course of that stream, and, to decide a bet, Bridger followed it 
southward until he came to Great Salt Lake. In the following 
spring four of the party explored the lake in boats made of skins, 
hoping to find beavers, and they, it is believed, were the first white 
men to float upon its waters. Fremont saw the lake from the 
summit of a butte on September 6, 1843. " It was," he says, " one 
of the great objects of the exploration, and, as we looked eagerly 
over the lake in the first emotions of excited pleasure, I am doubt- 
ful if the followers of Balboa felt more enthusiasm when, from the 
heights of the Andes, they saw for the first time the great Western 
Ocean." This practical claim of discovery was not well founded, 
nor was his sail on the lake in an india-rubber boat " the first ever 
attempted on this interior sea." 

Dating from 1825, the lake region of Utah became more and 
more familiar to American trappers and explorers. In 1833 Cap- 
tain Bonneville, of the United States army, obtained leave of 
absence, and with a company of 1 10 trappers set out for the Far 
West by the Platte route. Crossing the Rockies through the 
South Pass, he made a fortified camp on Green River, whence he 
for three years explored the country. One of his parties, under 
Joseph Walker, was sent to trap beavers on Great Salt Lake and 
to explore it thoroughly, making notes and maps. Bonneville, in 
his description of the lake to Irving, declared that lofty mountains 
rose from its bosom, and greatly magnified its extent to the south. 1 
Walker's party got within sight of the lake, but found themselves 
in a desert, and accordingly changed their course and crossed the 
Sierras into California. In Bonneville's map the lake is called 
" Lake Bonneville or Great Salt Lake," and Irving calls it Lake 
Bonneville in his " Astoria." 

The day after the first arrival of Brigham Young in Salt Lake 
Valley (Sunday, July 25), church services were held and the sacra- 
ment was administered. Young addressed his followers, indicating 
at the start his idea of his leadership and of the ownership of the 
land, which was then Mexican territory. " He said that no man 
should buy any land who came here," says Woodruff ; " that he 
had none to sell ; but every man should have his land measured 

1 Bonneville's " Adventures," p. 184. 



THE FOUNDING OF SALT LAKE CITY 



397 



out to him for city and farming purposes. He might till it as he 
pleased, but he must be industrious and take care of it." 1 

The next day a party, including all the Twelve who were 
in the valley, set out to explore the neighborhood. They visited 
and bathed in Great Salt Lake, climbed and named Ensign 
Peak, and met a party of Utah Indians, who made signs that 
they wanted to trade. On their return Young explained to the 
people his ideas of an exploration of the country to the west 
and north. 

Meanwhile, those left in the valley had been busy staking off 
fields, irrigating them, and planting vegetables and grain. Some 
buildings, among them a blacksmith shop, were begun. The 
members of the Battalion, about four hundred of whom had now 
arrived, constructed a " bowery." Camps of Utah Indians were 
visited, and the white men witnessed their method of securing 
for food the abundant black crickets, by driving them into an 
enclosure fenced with brush which they set on fire. 

On July 28, after a council of the Quorum had been held, the 
site of the Temple was selected by Brigham Young, who waved 
his hand and said : " Here is the 40 acres for the Temple. The 
city can be laid out perfectly square, east and west." 2 The 40 
acres were a few days later reduced to 10, but the site then chosen 
is that on which the big Temple now stands. It was also decided 
that the city should be laid out in lots measuring 10 by 20 rods 
each, 8 lots to a block, with streets 8 rods wide, and sidewalks 20 
feet wide ; each house to be erected in the centre of a lot, and 20 
feet from the front line. Land was also reserved for four parks 
of 10 acres each. 

Men were at once sent into the mountains to secure logs for 
cabins, and work on adobe huts was also begun. On August 7 
those of the Twelve present selected their "inheritances," each 
taking a block near the Temple. A week later the Twelve in 
council selected the blocks on which the companies under each 

1 "After the assignments were made, persons commenced the usual speculations of 
selling according to eligibility of situation. This called out anathemas from the spiritual 
powers, and no one was permitted to traffic for fancy profit ; if any sales were made, the 
first cost and actual value of improvements were all that was to be allowed. All specu- 
lative sales were made sub rosa. Exchanges are made and the records kept by the 
register." — Gunnison, "The Mormons" (1852), p. 145. 

2 Tullidge's " Life of Brigham Young," p. 178. 



398 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



should settle. The city as then laid out covered a space nearly 
four miles long and three broad. 1 

On August 22 a General Conference decided that the city 
should be called City of the Great Salt Lake. When the city was 
incorporated, in 185 1, the name was changed to Salt Lake City. 
In view of the approaching return of Young and his fellow offi- 
cers to the Missouri River, the company in the valley were placed 
in charge of the prophet's uncle, John Smith, as Patriarch, with a 
high council and other officers of a Stake. 

When P. P. Pratt and the following companies reached the 
valley in September, they found a fort partly built, and every one 
busy, preparing for the winter. The crops of that year had been 
a disappointment, having been planted too late. The potatoes 
raised varied in size from that of a pea to half an inch in diame- 
ter, but they were saved and used successfully for seed the next 
year. A great deal of grain was sown during the autumn and 
winter, considerable wheat having been brought from California 
by members of the Battalion. Pratt says that the snow was several 
inches deep when they did some of their ploughing, but that the 
ground was clear early in March. A census taken in March, 1848, 
gave the city a population of 1671, with 423 houses erected. 

The Saints in the valley spent a good deal of that winter work- 
ing on their cabins, making furniture, and carting fuel. They dis- 
covered that the warning about the lack of timber was well 
founded, all the logs and firewood being hauled from a point eight 
miles distant, over bad roads, and with teams that had not recov- 
ered from the effect of the overland trip. Many settlers therefore 
built huts of adobe bricks, some with cloth roofs. Lack of expe- 
rience in handling adobe clay for building purposes led to some sad 
results, the rains and frosts causing the bricks to crumble or burst, 
and more than one of these houses tumbled down around their 
owners. Even the best of the houses had very flat roofs, the new- 
comers believing that the climate was always dry ; and when the 
rains and melted snow came, those who had umbrellas frequently 
raised them indoors to protect their beds or their fires. 

1 Tullidge says: "The land portion of each family, as a rule, was the acre-and-a- 
quarter lot designated in the plan of the city; but the chief jnen of the pioneers, who 
had a plurality of wives and numerous children, received larger portions of the city lots. 
The giving of farms, as shown in the General Epistle, was upon the same principle as 
the apportioning of city lots. The farm of five, ten, or twenty acres was not for the 



THE FOUNDING OF SALT LAKE CITY 



399 



Two years later, when Captain Stansbury of the United States 
Topographical Engineers, with his surveying party, spent the 
winter in Salt Lake City, in "a small, unfurnished house of unburnt 
brick or adobe, unplastered, and roofed with boards loosely nailed 
on," which let in the rains in streams, he says they were better 
lodged than many of their neighbors. " Very many families," he 
explains, " were obliged still to lodge wholly or in part in their 
wagons, which, being covered, served, when taken off from the 
wheels and set upon the ground, to make bedrooms, of limited 
dimensions, it is true, but exceedingly comfortable. In the very 
next enclosure to that of our party, a whole family of children 
had no other shelter than one of these wagons, where they slept 
all winter." 

The furniture of the early houses was of the rudest kind, since 
only the most necessary articles could be brought in the wagons. 
A chest or a barrel would do for a table, a bunk built against the 
side logs would be called a bed, and such rude stools as could be 
most easily put together served for chairs. 

The letters sent for publication in England to attract emigrants 
spoke of a mild and pleasant winter, not telling of the privations 
of these pioneers. The greatest actual suffering was caused by a 
lack of food as spring advanced. A party had been sent to Cali- 
fornia, in November, for cattle, seeds, etc., but they lost forty of a 
herd of two hundred on the way back. The cattle that had been 
brought across the plains were in poor condition on their arrival, 
and could find very little winter pasturage. Many of the milk 
cows driven all the way from the Missouri had died by midsum- 
mer. By spring parched grain was substituted for coffee, a kind 
of molasses was made from beets, and what little flour could be 
obtained was home-ground and unbolted. Even so high an officer 
of the church as P. P. Pratt, thus describes the privations of his 
family : " In this labor [ploughing, cultivating, and sowing] every 
woman and child in my family, so far as they were of sufficient 

mechanic, nor the manufacturer, nor even for the farmer, as a mere personal property, 
but for the good of the community at large, to give the substance of the earth to feed 
the population. . . . While the farmer was planting and cultivating his farm, the 
mechanic and tradesman produced his supplies and wrought his daily work for the com- 
munity." He adds, " It can be easily understood how some departures were made from 
this original plan.". This understanding can be gained in no better way than by inspect- 
ing the list of real estate left by Brigham Young in his will as his individual possession. 



400 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



age and strength, had joined to help me, and had toiled incessantly 
in the field, suffering every hardship which human nature could 
well endure. Myself and most of them were compelled to go with 
bare feet for several months, reserving our Indian moccasins for 
extra occasions. We toiled hard, and lived on a few greens, and 
on thistle and other roots." 

This was the year of the great visitation of crickets, the destruc- 
tion of which has given the Mormons material for the story of one 
of their miracles. The crickets appeared in May, and they ate 
the country clear before them. In a wheat-field they would aver- 
age two or three to a head of grain. Even ditches filled with 
water would not stop them. Kane described them as " wingless, 
dumpy, black, swollen-headed, with bulging eyes in cases like 
goggles, mounted upon legs of steel wire and clock spring, and 
with a general personal appearance that justified the Mormons in 
comparing them to a cross of a spider and the buffalo." When 
this plague was at its worst, the Mormons saw flocks of gulls 
descend and devour the crickets so greedily that they would often 
disgorge the food undigested. Day after day did the gulls appear 
until the plague was removed. Utah guide-books of to-day refer 
to this as a divine interposition of Heaven in behalf of the Saints. 
But writers of that date, like P. P. Pratt, ignore the miraculous 
feature, and the white gulls dot the fields between Salt Lake City 
and Ogden in 1901 just as they did in the summer of 1848, and 
as Fremont found them there in September, 1843. Gulls are 
abundant all over the plains, and are found with the snipe and 
geese as far north as North Dakota. Heaven's interposition, if 
exercised, was not thorough, for, after the crickets, came grass- 
hoppers in such numbers that one writer says, " On one occasion 
a quarter [of one cloud] dropped into the lake and were blown on 
shore by the wind, in rows sometimes two feet deep, for a distance 
of two miles." 

But the crops, with all the drawbacks, did better than had been 
deemed possible, and on August 10 the people held a kind of harvest 
festival in the "bowery" in the centre of their fort, when " large 
sheaves of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and other productions were 
hoisted on poles for public exhibition." 1 Still, the outlook was so 
alarming that word was sent to Winter Quarters advising against 

1 Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 406. 



THE FOUNDING OF SALT LAKE CITY 40 1 

increasing their population at that time, and Brigham Young's 
son urged that a message be sent to his father giving similar 
advice. 1 Nevertheless P. P. Pratt did not hesitate in a letter 
addressed to the Saints in England, on September 5, to say that 
they had had ears of corn to boil for a month, that he had secured 
" a good harvest of wheat and rye without irrigation," and that 
there would be from ten thousand to twenty thousand bushels of 
grain in the valley more than was needed for home consumption. 

1 Bancroft's " History of Utah," p. 281. 



2D 



CHAPTER II 



PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT ! 

With the arrival of the later companies from Winter Quarters 
the population of the city was increased by the winter of 1848 to 
about five thousand, or more than one-quarter of those who went 
out from Nauvoo. The settlers then had three sawmills, one 
flouring mill, and a threshing machine run by water, another saw- 
mill and flour mill nearly completed, and several mills under way 
for the manufacture of sugar from corn stalks. 

Brigham Young, again on the ground, took the lead at once 
in pushing on the work. To save fencing, material for which was 
hard to obtain, a tract of eight thousand acres was set apart and 
fenced for the common use, within which farmhouses could be built. 
The plan adopted for fencing in the city itself was to enclose each 
ward separately, every lot owner building his share. A stone 
council house, forty-five feet square, was begun, the labor count- 
ing as a part of the tithe ; unappropriated city lots were distributed 
among the new-comers by a system of drawing, and the building 
of houses went briskly on, the officers of the church sharing in the 
labor. A number of bridges were also provided, a tax of one per 
cent being levied to pay for them. 

Among the incidents of the winter mentioned in an epistle of 
the First Presidency was the establishment of schools in the dif- 
ferent wards, in which, it was stated, "the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 
French, German, Tahitian and English languages have been 
taught successfully " ; and the organization of a temporary local 
government, and of a Stake of Zion, with Daniel Spencer as 
president. It was early the policy of the church to carry on an 
extended system of public works, including manufacturing enter- 
prises. The assisted immigrants were expected to repay by work 
on these buildings the advance made to them to cover their trav- 

402 



1 



PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT 403 

elling expenses. Young saw at once the advantage of starting 
branches of manufacture, both to make his people independent 
of a distant supply and to give employment to the population. 
Writing to Orson Pratt on October 14, 1849, when Pratt was in 
England, he said that they would have the material for cotton and 
woollen factories ready by the time men and machinery were pre- 
pared to handle it, and urged him to send on cotton operatives and 
"all the necessary fixtures." The third General Epistle spoke of 
the need of furnaces and forges, and Orson Pratt, in an address 
to the Saints in Great Britain, dated July 2, 1850, urged the officers 
of companies " to seek diligently in every branch for wise, skilful 
and ingenious mechanics, manufacturers, potters, etc." 1 

The General Conference of October, 1849, ordered one man to 
build a glass factory in the valley, and voted to organize a com- 
pany to transport passengers and freight between the Missouri 
River and California, directing that settlements be established 
along the route. This company was called the Great Salt Lake 
Valley Carrying Company. Its prospectus in the Frontier Guardian 
in December, 1849, stated that the fare from Kanesville to Sutter's 
Fort, California, would be $300, and the freight rate to Great Salt 
Lake City $12.50 per hundredweight, the passenger wagons to be 
drawn by four horses or mules, and the freight wagons by oxen. 

But the work of making the new Mormon home a business and 
manufacturing success did not meet with rapid encouragement. 
Where settlements were made outside of Salt Lake City, the 
people were not scattered in farmhouses over the country, but 
lived in what they called " forts," squalid looking settlements, laid 
out in a square and defended by a dirt or adobe wall. The inhab- 
itants of these settlements had to depend on the soil for their subsis- 
tence, and such necessary workmen as carpenters and shoemakers 
plied their trade as they could find leisure after working in the 
fields. When Johnston's army entered the valley in 1858, the 
largest attempt at manufacturing that had been undertaken there 
— a beet sugar factory, toward which English capitalists had con- 
tributed more than $100,000 — had already proved a failure. There 

1 The General Epistle of April, 1852, announced two potteries in operation, a small 
woollen factory begun, a nail factory, wooden bowl factory, and many grist and saw mills. 
The General Epistle of October, 1855, enumerated, as among the established industries, 
a foundery, a cutlery shop, and manufactories of locks, cloth, leather, hats, cordage, 
brushes, soap, paper, combs, and cutlery. 



404 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



were tanneries, distilleries, and breweries in operation, a few rifles 
and revolvers were made from iron supplied by wagon tires, and 
in the larger settlements a few good mechanics were kept busy. 
But if no outside influences had contributed to the prosperity of 
the valley, and hastened the day when it secured railroad commu- 
nication, the future of the people whom Young gathered in Utah 
would have been very different. 

A correspondent of the New York Tribune, on his way to Cali- 
fornia, writing on July 8, 1849, tnus described Salt Lake City as it 
presented itself to him at that time : — 

" There are no hotels, because there had been no travel ; no barber shops, 
because every one chose to shave himself and no one had time to shave his neigh- 
bor ; no stores, because they had no goods to sell nor time to traffic ; no center 
of business, because all were too busy to make- a center. There was abundance 
of mechanics 1 shops, of dressmakers, milliners and tailors, etc., but they needed 
no sign, nor had they any time to paint or erect one, for they were crowded with 
business. Besides their several trades, all must cultivate the land or die ; for the 
country was new, and no cultivation but their own within 1000 miles. Everyone 
had his lot and built on it ; every one cultivated it, and perhaps a small farm in 
the distance. And the strangest of all was that this great city, extending over 
several square miles, had been erected, and every house and fence made, within 
nine or ten months of our arrival; while at the same time good bridges were 
erected over the principal streams, and the country settlements extended nearly 
100 miles up and down the valley." 1 

The winter of 1 848 set in early and severe, with frequent snow- 
storms from December 1 until late in February, and the tempera- 
ture dropping one degree below zero as late as February 5. The 
deep snow in the canons, the only outlets through the mountains, 
rendered it difficult to bring in fuel, and the suffering from the 
cold was terrible, as many families had arrived too late to provide 
themselves with any shelter but their prairie wagons. The appre- 
hended scarcity of food, too, was realized. Early in February an 
inventory of the breadstuffs in the valley, taken by the Bishops, 
showed only three-quarters of a pound a day per head until July 
5, although it was believed that many had concealed stores on 
hand. When the first General Epistle of the First Presidency was 
sent out from Salt Lake City in the spring of 1849, 2 corn, which 
had sold for $2 and $3 a bushel, was not to be had, wheat 

1 New York Tribune, October 9, 1 849. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 227. 



PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT 405 

had ranged from $4 to $5 a bushel, and potatoes from $6 to $20, 
with none then in market. 

The people generally exerted themselves to obtain food for 
those whose supplies had been exhausted, but the situation became 
desperate before the snow melted. Three attempts to reach Fort 
Bridger failed because of the depth of snow in the canons. There 
is a record of a winter hunt of two rival parties of 100 men each, 
but they killed "varmints" rather than game, the list including 
700 wolves and foxes, 20 minks and skunks, 500 hawks, owls and 
magpies, and 1000 ravens. 1 Some of the Mormons, with the aid 
of Indian guides, dug roots that the savages had learned to eat, 
and some removed the hide roofs from their cabins and stewed 
them for food. The lack of breadstuffs continued until well into 
the summer, and the celebration of the anniversary of the arrival 
of the pioneers in the valley, which had been planned for July 4, 
was postponed until the 24th, as Young explained in his address, 
" that we might have a little bread to set on our tables." 

Word was now sent to the states and to Europe that no more 
of the brethren should make the trip to the valley at that time 
unless they had means to get through without assistance, and 
could bring breadstuffs to last them several months after their 
arrival. 

But something now occurred which turned the eyes of a large 
part of the world to that new acquisition of the United States on 
the Pacific coast which was called California, which made the 
Mormon settlement in Utah a way station for thousands of trav- 
ellers where a dozen would not have passed it without the new 
incentive, and which brought to the Mormon settlers, almost at 
their own prices, supplies of which they were desperately in need, 
and which they could not otherwise have obtained. This some- 
thing was the discovery of gold in California. 

When the news of this discovery reached the Atlantic states 
and those farther west, men simply calculated by what route they 
could most quickly reach the new El Dorado, and the first com- 
panies of miners who travelled across the plains sacrificed every- 
thing for speed. The first rush passed through Salt Lake Valley in 
August, 1849. Some of the Mormons who had reached California 
with Brannan's company had by that time arrived in the valley, 

1 General Epistle, Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 227. 



406 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



bringing with them a few bags of gold dust. When the would-be 
miners from the East saw this proof of the existence of gold in the 
country ahead of them, their enthusiasm knew no limits, and their 
one wish was to lighten themselves so that they could reach the 
gold-fields in the shortest time possible. Then the harvest of the 
Mormons began. Pack mules and horses that had been worth 
only $25 or $30 would now bring $200 in exchange for other arti- 
cles at a low price, and the travellers were auctioning off their sur- 
plus supplies every day. For a light wagon they did not hesitate 
to offer three or four heavy ones, with a yoke of oxen sometimes 
thrown in. Such needed supplies as domestic sheetings could be 
had at from five to ten cents a yard, spades and shovels, with 
which the miners were overstocked, at fifty cents each, and nearly 
everything in their outfit, except sugar and coffee, at half the price 
that would have been charged at wholesale in the Eastern states. 1 

The commercial profit to the Mormons from this emigration 
was greater still in 1850, when the rush had increased. Before 
the grain of that summer was cut, the gold seekers paid $1 a 
pound for flour in Salt Lake City. After the new grain was har- 
vested they eagerly bought the flour as fast as five mills could 
grind it, at $25 per hundredweight. Un ground wheat sold for $8 
a bushel, wood for $10 a cord, adobe bricks for more than seven 
shillings a hundred, and skilled mechanics were getting twelve 
shillings and sixpence a day. 2 At the same time that the emi- 
grants were paying so well for what they absolutely required, they 
were sacrificing large supplies of what they did not need on almost 
any terms. Some of them had started across the plains with heavy 
loads of machinery and miscellaneous goods, on which they ex- 
pected to reap a big profit in California. Learning, however, when 
they reached Salt Lake City, that ship-loads of such merchandise 
were on their way around the Horn, the owners sacrificed their 
stock where it was, and hurried on to get their share of the gold. 

This is not the place in which to tell the story of that rush of 
the gold seekers. The clerk at Fort Laramie reported, "The 
total number of emigrants who passed this post up to June 10, 
1850, included 16,915 men, 235 women, 242 children, 4672 
wagons, 14,974 horses, 4641 mules, 7475 oxen, and 1653 cows." 

1 Salt Lake City letter to the Frontier Guardian. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 350. 



PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT 



407 



A letter from Sacramento dated September 10, 1850, gave this 
picture of the trail left by these travellers : " Many believed there 
are dead animals enough on the desert (of 45 miles) between Hum- 
boldt Lake and Carson River to pave a road the whole distance. 
We will make a moderate estimate and say there is a dead animal 
to every five feet, left on the desert this season. I counted 153 
wagons within a mile and a half. Not half of those left were to 
be seen, many having been burned to make lights in the night. 
The desert is strewn with all kinds of property — tools, clothes, 
crockery, harnesses, etc." 

Naturally, in this rush for sudden riches, many a Mormon had 
a desire to join. A dozen families left Utah for California early 
in 1849, an d in March, 185 1, a company of more than five hundred 
assembled in Payson, preparatory to making the trip. Here was 
an unexpected danger to the growth of the Mormon population, 
and one which the head of the church did not delay in checking. 
The second General Epistle, dated October 12, 1849, 1 stated that 
the valley of the Sacramento was unhealthy, and that the Saints 
could do better raising grain in Utah, adding, "The true use of 
gold is for paving streets, covering houses, and making culinary 
dishes, and when the Saints shall have preached the Gospel, raised 
grain, and built up cities enough, the Lord will open up the way for 
a supply of gold, to the perfect satisfaction of his people." 

Notwithstanding this advice, a good many Mormons acted on 
the idea that the Lord would help those who helped themselves, 
and that if they were to have golden culinary dishes they must go 
and dig the gold. Accordingly, we find the third General Epistle, 
dated April 12, 1850, acknowledging that many brethren had gone 
to the gold mines, but declaring that they were counselled only "by 
their own wills and covetous feelings," and that they would have 
done more good by staying in the valley. Young did not, how- 
ever, stop with a mere rebuke. He proposed to check the exodus. 
" Let such men," the Epistle added, " remember that they are not 
wanted in our midst. Let such leave their carcasses where they 
do their work ; we want not our burial grounds polluted with such 
hypocrites." Young was quite as plain spoken in his remarks to 
the General Conference that spring, naming as those who " will go 
down to hell, poverty-stricken and naked," the Mormons who felt 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 119. 



408 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



that they were so poor that they would have to go to the gold 
mines. 1 Such talk had its effect, and Salt Lake Valley retained 
most of its population. 

The progress of the settlement received a serious check some 
years later in the failure of the crops in 1855, followed by a near 
approach to a famine in the ensuing winter. Very little reference 
to this was made in the official church correspondence, but a pic- 
ture of the situation in Salt Lake City that winter was drawn in 
two letters from Heber C. Kimball to his sons in England. 2 In 
the first, written in February, he said that his family and Brigham 
Young's were then on a ration of half a pound of bread each per 
day, and that thousands had scarcely any breadstuff at all. Kim- 
ball's family of one hundred persons then had on hand about seventy 
bushels of potatoes and a few beets and carrots, "so you can judge," 
he says, " whether we can get through until harvest without dig- 
ging roots." There were then not more than five hundred bushels 
of grain in the tithing office, and all public work was stopped until 
the next harvest, and all mechanics were advised to drop their tools 
and to set about raising grain. " There is not a settlement in the 
territory," said the writer, " but is also in the same fix as we are. 
Dollars and cents do not count in these times, for they are the 
tightest I have ever seen in the territory of Utah." In April he 
wrote : " I suppose one-half the church stock is dead. There are 
not more than one-half the people that have bread, and they have 
not more than one-half or one quarter of a pound a day to a 
person. A great portion of the people are digging roots, and hun- 
dreds and thousands, their teams being dead, are under the neces- 
sity of spading their ground to put in their grain." The harvest 
of 1856 also suffered from drought and insects, and the Deseret 
News that summer declared that "the most rigid economy and 
untiring, well-directed industry may enable us to escape starvation 
until a harvest in 1857, an d until the lapse of another year emi- 
grants and others will run great risks of starving unless they bring 
their supplies with them." The first load of barley brought into 
Salt Lake City that summer sold for $2 a bushel. 

The first building erected in Salt Lake City in which to hold 
church services was called a tabernacle. It was begun in 185 1, 
and was consecrated on April 6, 1852. It stood in Temple block, 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 274. 2 Ibid., Vol. XVIII, pp. 395, 476. 



PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT 



409 



where the Assembly Hall now stands, measuring about 60 by 
120 feet, and providing accommodation for 2500 people. The 
present Tabernacle, in which the public church services are 
held, was completed in 1870. It stands just west of the Temple, 
is elliptical in shape, and, with its broad gallery running around 
the entire interior, except the end occupied by the organ loft and 
pulpit, it can seat about 9000 persons. Its acoustic properties 
are remarkable, and one of the duties of any guide who exhibits 
the auditorium to visitors is to station them at the end of the 
gallery opposite the pulpit, and to drop a pin on the floor to 
show them how distinctly that sound can be heard. 

The Temple in Salt Lake City was begun in April, 1853, and 
was not dedicated until April, 1893. This building is devoted to 
the secret ceremonies of the church, and no Gentile is ever admitted 
to it. The building, of granite taken from the near-by mountains, 
is architecturally imposing, measuring 200 by 100 feet. Its cost is 
admitted to have been about $4,000,000. The building could 
probably be duplicated to-day for one-half that sum. The excuse 
given by church authorities for the excessive cost is that, during 
the early years of the work upon it, the granite had to be hauled 
from the mountains by ox teams, and that everything in the way 
of building material was expensive in Utah when the church there 
was young. The interior is divided into different rooms, in which 
such ceremonies as the baptism for the dead are performed ; the 
baptismal font is copied after the one that was in the Temple at 
Nauvoo. 

There are three other temples in Utah, all of which were com- 
pleted before the one in Salt Lake City, namely, at St. George, 
at Logan, and at Manti. 



CHAPTER III 



THE FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO UTAH 

When the Mormons began their departure westward from 
Nauvoo, the immigration of converts from Europe was suspended 
because of the uncertainty about the location of the next settlement, 
and the difficulty of transporting the existing population. But the 
necessity of constant additions to the community of new-comers, 
and especially those bringing some capital, was never lost sight of 
by the heads of the church. An evidence of this was given even 
before the first company reached the Missouri River. 

While the Saints were marching through Iowa they received 
intelligence of a big scandal in connection with the emigration 
business in England, and P. P. Pratt, Orson Hyde, and John Tay- 
lor were hurriedly sent to that country to straighten the matter out. 
The Millennial Star in the early part of 1 846 had frequent articles 
about the British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company, 
an organization incorporated to assist poor Saints in emigrating. 
The principal emigration agent in Great Britain at that time was 
R. Hedlock. He was the originator of the Joint Stock Company, 
and Thomas Ward was its president. The Mormon investigators 
found that more than .£1644 of the contributions of the stock- 
holders had been squandered, and that Ward had been lending 
Hedlock money with which to pay his personal debts. Ward and 
Hedlock were at once disfellowshipped, and contributions to the 
treasury of the company were stopped. Pratt says that Hedlock 
fled when the investigators arrived, leaving many debts, "and 
finally lived incog, in London with a vile woman." Thus it seems 
that Mormon business enterprises in England were no freer from 
scandals than those in America. 

The efforts of the leaders of the church were now exerted to 
make the prospects of the Saints in Utah attractive to the converts 

410 



THE FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO UTAH 



411 



in England whom they wished to add to the population of their 
valley. Young and his associates seem to have entertained the 
idea, without reckoning on the rapid settlement of California, the 
migration of the " Forty-niners," and the connection of the two 
coasts by rail, that they could constitute a little empire all by itself 
in Utah, which would be self-supporting as well as independent, 
the farmer raising food for the mechanic, and the mechanic doing 
the needed work for the farmer. Accordingly, the church did not 
stop short of every kind of misrepresentation and deception in 
belittling to the foreigners the misfortunes of the past, and pictur- 
ing to them the fruitfulness of their new country, and the ease 
with which they could become landowners there. 

Naturally, after the expulsion from Illinois, in which so many 
foreign converts shared, an explanation and palliation of the emi- 
gration thence were necessary. In the United States, then and 
ever since, the Mormons pictured themselves as the victims of an 
almost unprecedented persecution. But as soon as John Taylor 
reached England, in 1846, he issued an address to the Saints in 
Great Britain 1 in which he presented a very different picture. 
Granting that, on an average, they had not obtained more than 
one-third the value of their real and personal property when they 
left Illinois, he explained that, when they settled there, land in 
Nauvoo was worth only from $3 to $20 per acre, while, when they 
left, it was worth from $50 to $1500 per acre ; in the same period 
the adjoining farm lands had risen in value from $1.25 and $5 to 
from $5 to $50 per acre. He assured his hearers, therefore, that 
the one-third value which they had obtained had paid them well 
for their labor. Nor was this all. When they left, they had 
exchanged their property for horses, cattle, provisions, clothing, 
etc., which was exactly what was needed by settlers in a new coun- 
try. As a further bait he went on to explain : " When we arrive 
in California, according to the provisions of the Mexican govern- 
ment, each family will be entitled to a large tract of land, amount- 
ing to several hundred acres," and, if that country passed into 
American control, he looked for the passage of a law giving 640 
acres to each male settler. " Thus," he summed up, " it will be 
easy to see that we are in a better condition than when we were in 
Nauvoo ! " 

l Millennial Star, Vol. VIII, p. 115. 



412 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The misrepresentation did not cease here, however. After 
announcing the departure of Brigham Young's pioneer company, 
Taylor 1 wound up with this tissue of false statements: "The 
way is now prepared ; the roads, bridges, and ferry-boats made ; 
there are stopping places also on the way where they can rest, 
obtain vegetables and corn, and, when they arrive at the far end, 
instead of finding a wild waste, they will meet with friends, provi- 
sions and a home, so that all that will be requisite for them to do 
will be to find sufficient teams to draw their families, and to take 
along with them a few woollen or cotton goods, or other articles of 
merchandise which will be light, and which the brethren will 
require until they can manufacture for themselves. " How many a 
poor Englishman, toiling over the plains in the next succeeding 
years, and, arriving in arid Utah to find himself in the clutches of 
an organization from which he could not escape, had reason to 
curse the man who drew this picture ! 

In 1847, at the suggestion of Taylor, Hyde, and Pratt, who 
were still in England, a petition bearing nearly 13,000 names was 
addressed to Queen Victoria, setting forth the misery existing 
among the working classes in Great Britain, suggesting, as the 
best means of relief, royal aid to those who wished to emigrate to 
" the island of Vancouver or to the great territory of Oregon," and 
asking her " to give them employment in improving the harbors of 
those countries, or in erecting forts of defence ; or, if this be inex- 
pedient, to furnish them provisions and means of subsistence until 
they can produce them from the soil." These American citizens 
did not hesitate to point out that the United States government 
was favoring the settlement of its territory on the Pacific coast, and 
to add : " While the United States do manifest such a strong incli- 
nation, not only to extend and enlarge their possessions in the West, 

1 John Taylor was born in England in 1808, and emigrated to Canada in 1829, 
where, after joining the Methodists, he, like Joseph Smith, found existing churches 
unsatisfactory, and was easily secured as a convert by P. P. Pratt. He was elected to 
the Quorum, and was sent to Great Britain as a missionary in 1840, writing several 
pamphlets while there. He arrived in Nauvoo with Brigham Young in 1841, and there 
edited the Times and Seasons, was a member of the City Council, a regent of the uni- 
versity, and judge advocate of the Legion, and was in the room with the prophet when 
the latter was shot. He was the Mormon representative in France in 1849, publish- 
ing a monthly paper there, translating the Mormon Bible into the French language, and 
preaching later at Hamburg, Germany. He was superintendent of the Mormon church 
in the Eastern states in 1857, when Young declared war against the United States, and 
he succeeded Young as head of the church. 



THE FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO UTAH 413 

but also to people them, will not your Majesty look well to British 
interests in those regions, and adopt timely precautionary measures 
to maintain a balance of power in that quarter which, in the opin- 
ion of your memorialists, is destined at no very distant period to 
participate largely in the China trade?" 1 

The Oregon boundary treaty was less than a year old when this 
petition was presented. It was characteristic of Mormon duplicity 
to find their representatives in Great Britain appealing to Queen 
Victoria on the ground of self-interest, while their chiefs in the United 
States were pointing to the organization of the Battalion as a proof 
of their fidelity to the home government. Practically no notice was 
taken of this petition. Vancouver Island, was, however, held out 
to the converts in Great Britain as the one " gathering point of the 
Saints from the islands and distant portions of the earth," until the 
selection of Salt Lake Valley as the Saints' abiding place. 

On December 23, 1847, Young, in behalf of the Twelve, issued 
from Winter Quarters a General Epistle to the church 2 which gave 
an account of his trip to the Salt Lake Valley, directed all to gather 
themselves speedily near Winter Quarters in readiness for the 
march to Salt Lake Valley, and said to the Saints in Europe : 
" Emigrate as speedily as possible to this vicinity. Those who 
have but little means, and little or no labor, will soon exhaust that 
means if they remain where they are. Therefore, it is wisdom 
that they remove without delay ; for here is land on which, by 
their labor, they can speedily better their condition for their fur- 
ther journey." The list of things which Young advised the emi- 
grants to bring with them embraced a wide assortment : . grains, 
trees, and vines ; live stock and fowls ; agricultural implements 
and mills ; firearms and ammunition ; gold and silver and zinc 
and tin and brass and ivory and precious stones ; curiosities, 
"sweet instruments of music, sweet odors, and beautiful colors." 
The care of the head of the church, that the immigrants should 
not neglect to provide themselves with cologne and rouge for use 
in crossing the prairies, was most thoughtful. 

The Millennial Star of February 1, 1848, made this announce- 
ment to the faithful in the British Isles : — 

" The channel of Saints' emigration to the land of Zion is now opened. The 
resting place of Israel for the last days has been discovered. In the elevated val- 

1 See Linforth's " Route," pp. 2-5. 2 Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 81. 



414 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



ley of the Salt and Utah Lakes, with the beautiful river Jordan running through 
it, is the newly established Stake of Zion. There vegetation nourishes with 
magic rapidity. And the food of man, or staff of life, leaps into maturity from 
the bowels of Mother Earth with astonishing celerity. Within one month from 
planting, potatoes grew from six to eight inches, and corn from two to four feet. 
There the frequent clouds introduce their fertilizing contents at a modest distance 
from the fat valley, and send their humid influences from the mountain tops. 
There the saline atmosphere of Salt Lake mingles in wedlock with the fresh hu- 
midity of the same vegetable element which comes over the mountain top, as if 
the nuptial bonds of rare elements were introduced to exhibit a novel specimen 
of a perfect vegetable progeny in the shortest possible time,- 1 etc. 

Contrast this with Brigham Young's letter to Colonel Alex- 
ander in October, 1857, — "We had hoped that in this barren, 
desolate country we could have remained unmolested." 

On the 20th of February, 1848, the shipment of Mormon 
emigrants began again with the sailing of the Cornatic, with 120 
passengers, for New Orleans. 

In the following April, Orson Pratt was sent to England to 
take charge of the affairs of the church there. On his arrival, in 
August, he issued an " Epistle " which was influential in augment- 
ing the movement. He said that " in the solitary valleys of the 
great interior " they hoped to hide " while the indignation of the 
Almighty is poured upon the nations" ; and urged the rich to dis- 
pose of their property in order to help the poor, commanding all 
who could do so to pay their tithing. " O ye saints of the Most 
High," he said, "linger not! Make good your retreat before the 
avenues are closed up ! " 

Many other letters were published in the Millennial Star in 
1 848-1 849, giving glowing accounts of the fertility of Salt Lake 
Valley. One from the clerk of the camp observed : " Many cases 
of twins. In a row of seven houses joining each other eight births 
in one week." 

In order to assist the poor converts in Europe, the General 
Conference held in Salt Lake City in October, 1849, voted to raise 
a fund, to be called "The Perpetual Emigrating Fund," and soon 
$5000 had been secured for this purpose. In September, 1850, the 
General Assembly of the Provisional State of Deseret incorporated 
the Perpetual Emigration Fund Company, and Brigham Young was 
elected its first president. Collections for this fund in Great Brit- 
ain amounted to ,£1410 by January, 1852, and the emigrants sent 



THE FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO UTAH 



415 



out in that year were assisted from this fund. These expenditures 
required an additional $5000, which was supplied from Salt Lake 
City. A letter issued by the First Presidency in October, 1849, 
urged the utmost economy in the expenditure of this money, and 
explained that, when the assisted emigrants arrived in Salt Lake 
City, they would give their obligations to the church to refund 
as soon as possible what had been expended on them. 1 In this 
way, any who were dissatisfied on their arrival in Utah found 
themselves in the church clutches, from which they could not 
escape. 

There were outbreaks of cholera among the emigrant parties 
crossing the plains in 1849, an d many deaths. 

In October, 1849, an important company left Salt Lake City to 
augment the list of missionaries in Europe. It included John 
Taylor and two others, assigned to France; Lorenzo Snow and 
one other, to Italy ; Erastus Snow and one other, to Denmark ; 2 
F. D. Richards and eight others, to England ; and J. Fosgreene, to 
Sweden. 

The system of Mormon emigration from Great Britain at that 
time seems to have been in the main a good one. The rule of the 
agent in Liverpool was not to charter a vessel until enough pas- 
sengers had made their deposits to warrant him in doing so. The 
rate of fare depended on the price paid for the charter. 3 As soon 
as the passengers arrived in Liverpool they could go on board ship, 
and, when enough came from one district, all sailed on one vessel. 
Once on board, they were organized with a president and two 
counsellors, — men who had crossed the ocean, if possible, — who 
allotted the staterooms, appointed watchmen to serve in turn, and 
looked after the sanitary arrangements. When the first through 
passengers for Salt Lake City left Liverpool, in 1852, an experi- 
enced elder was sent in advance to have teams and supplies in 
readiness at the point where the land journey would begin, and 
other men of experience accompanied them to engage river trans- 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 124. 

2 Elder Dykes reported in October, 185 1, that, on his arrival in Aalborg, Denmark, 
he found that a mob had broken in the windows of the Saints' meeting-house and 
destroyed the furniture, and had also broken the windows of the Saints' houses, and, by 
the mayor's advice, he left the city by the first steamer. Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, 
p. 346. 

3 See Linforth's "Route," pp. 10, 17-22; Mackay's "History of the Mormons," 
pp. 298-302; Pratt's letter to the Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 277. 



416 THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 

portation when they reached New Orleans. The statistics of 
the emigration thus called out were as follows : — 



Year 


Vessels 


Emigrants 






5 


754 


1849 . 




9 


2078 






6 


1612 






4 


1869 



The Frontier Guardian at Kanesville estimated the Mormon 
movement across the plains in 1850 at about 700 wagons, taking 
5000 horses and cattle and 4000 sheep. 

Of the class of emigrants then going out, the manager of the 
leading shipping agents at Liverpool who furnished the ships 
said, "They are principally farmers and mechanics, with some 
few clerks, surgeons, and so forth." He found on the company's 
books, for the period between October, 1849, an d March, 1850, the 
names of 16 miners, 20 engineers, 19 farmers, 108 laborers, 
10 joiners, 25 weavers, 15 shoemakers, 12 smiths, 19 tailors, 8 
watchmakers, 25 stone masons, 5 butchers, 4 bakers, 4 potters, 
10 painters, 7 shipwrights, and 5 dyers. 

The statistics of the Mormon emigration given by the British 
agency for the years named were as follows : — 



Year 


Vessels 


Emigrants 


1852 


3 


73 2 


1853 • 


7 


2312 


1854 • • 


9 


2456 


1852 1854, Scandinavian and German via 










1053 


1855 


13 


4425 



In 1853 the experiment was made of engaging to send adults 
from Liverpool to Utah for ^10 each and children for half price; 
but this did not succeed, and those who embraced the offer had to 
borrow money or teams to complete the journey. 

In 1853, owing to extortions practised on the emigrants by 



THE FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO UTAH 417 

the merchants and traders at Kanesville, as well as the un health- 
fulness of the Missouri bottoms, the principal point of departure 
from the river was changed to Keokuk, Iowa. The authorities 
and people there showed the new-comers every kindness, and set 
apart a plot of ground for their camp. In this camp each com- 
pany on its arrival was organized and provided with the necessary 
teams, etc. In 1854 the point of departure was again changed to 
Kansas, in western Missouri, fourteen miles west of Independence, 
the route then running to the Big Blue River, and through what 
are now the states of Kansas and Nebraska. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY 

In 1855 the crops in Utah were almost a failure, and the church 
authorities found themselves very much embarrassed by their debts. 
A report in the seventh General Epistle, of April 18, 1852, set forth 
that, from their entry into the valley to March 27, of that year, 
there had been received as tithing, mostly in property, $244,747.03, 
and in loans and from other sources $145,513.78, of which total 
there had been expended in assisting immigrants and on church 
buildings, city lots, manufacturing industries, etc., $353,765.69. 
Young found it necessary therefore to cut down his expenses, and 
he looked around for a method of doing this without checking the 
stream of new-comers. The method which he evolved was to fur- 
nish the immigrants with hand-carts on their arrival in Iowa, and 
to let them walk all the way across the plains, taking with them 
only such effects as these carts would hold, each party of ten to 
drive with them one or two cows. 

Although Young tried to throw the result of this experiment 
on others, the evidence is conclusive that he devised it and worked 
out its details. In a letter to Elder F. D. Richards, in Liverpool, 
dated September 30, 1855, Young said: "We cannot afford to pur- 
chase wagons and teams as in times past. I am consequently- 
thrown back upon my old plan — to make hand-carts, and let the 
emigration foot it." To show what a pleasant trip this would 
make, this head of the church, who had three times crossed the 
plains, added, " Fifteen miles a day will bring them through in 
70 days, and, after they get accustomed to it, they will travel 20, 
25, or even 30 with all ease, and no danger of giving out, but will 
continue to get stronger and stronger ; the little ones and sick, if 
there are any, can be carried on the carts, but there will be none 
sick in a little time after they get started." 1 

1 Millennial Star, Vol. VII, p. 813. 
418 



THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY 



419 



Directions in accordance with this plan were issued in the form 
of a circular in Liverpool in February, 1856, naming Iowa City, 
Iowa, as the point of outfit. The charge for booking through to 
Utah by the Perpetual Emigration Fund Company was fixed at 
£9 for all over one year old, and £4 10s. for younger infants. 
The use of trunks or boxes was discouraged, and the emigrants 
were urged to provide themselves with oil-cloth or mackintosh 
bags. 

About thirteen hundred persons left Liverpool to undertake 
this foot journey across the plains, placing implicit faith in the 
pictures of Salt Lake Valley drawn by the missionaries, and not 
doubting that the method of travel would be as enjoyable as it 
seemed economical. Five separate companies were started that 
summer from Iowa City. The first and second of these arrived at 
Florence, Nebraska, on July 17, the third, made up mostly of 
Welsh, on July 19, and the fourth on August n. The first com- 
pany made the trip to Utah without anything more serious to report 
than the necessary discomforts of such a march, and were received 
with great acclaim by the church authorities, and welcomed with 
an elaborate procession. It was the last companies whose story 
became a tragedy. 1 

The immigrants met with their first disappointment on arriving 
at Iowa City. Instead of finding their carts ready for them, they 
were told that no advance agent had prepared the way. The last 
companies were subjected to the most delay from this cause. Even 
the carts were still to be manufactured, and, while they were mak- 
ing, many a family had to camp in the open fields, without even 
the shelter of a tent or a wagon top. The carts, when pronounced 
finished, moved on two light wheels, the only iron used in their 
construction being a very thin tire. Two projecting shafts of 
hickory or oak were joined by a cross piece, by means of which 
the owner propelled the vehicle. 

When Mr. Chislett's company, after a three weeks' delay, made 
a start, they were five hundred strong, comprising English, Scotch, 
and Scandanavians. They were divided, as usual, into hundreds, 
to each hundred being allotted five tents, twenty hand-carts, and 

1 The experiences of those companies were told in detail by a member of one, John 
Chislett, and printed in the " Rocky Mountain Saints." Mrs. Stenhouse gives additional 
experiences in her " Tell it All." 



420 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



one wagon drawn by three yokes of oxen, the latter carrying the 
tents and provisions. Families containing more young men than 
were required to draw their own carts shared these human draught 
animals with other families who were not so well provided ; but 
many carts were pulled along by young girls. 

The lowans bestowed on the travellers both kindness and com- 
miseration. Knowing better than did the new-comers from 
Europe the trials that awaited them, they pointed out the lateness 
of the season, and they did persuade a few members to give up 
the trip. But the elders who were in charge of the company were 
watchful, the religious spirit was kept up by daily meetings, and 
the one command that was constantly reiterated was, " Obey your 
leaders in all things." 

A march of four weeks over a hot, dusty route was required to 
bring them to the Missouri River near Florence. Even there they 
were insufficiently supplied with food. With flour costing $3 per 
hundred pounds, and bacon seven or eight cents a pound, the daily 
allowance of food was ten ounces of flour to each adult, and four 
ounces to children under eight years old, with bacon, coffee, sugar, 
and rice served occasionally. Some of the men ate all their allow- 
ance for the day at their breakfast, and depended on the generosity 
of settlers on the way, while there were any, for what further food 
they had until the next morning. 

After a week's stay at Florence (the old Winter Quarters), the 
march across the plains was resumed on August 18. The danger 
of making this trip so late in the season, with a company which 
included many women, children, and aged persons, gave even the 
elders pause, and a meeting was held to discuss the matter. But 
Levi Savage, who had made the trip to and from the valley, alone 
advised against continuing the march that season. The others 
urged the company to go on, declaring that they were God's people, 
and prophesying in His name that they would get through the 
mountains in safety. The emigrants, "simple, honest, eager to 
go to Zion at once, and obedient as little children to the ' servants 
of God,' voted to proceed." 1 

1 A " bond," which each assisted emigrant was required to sign in Liverpool, contained 
the following stipulations : " We do severally and jointly promise and bind ourselves to con- 
tinue with and obey the instructions of the agent appointed to superintend our passage 
thither to [Utah]. And that, on our arrival in Utah, we will hold ourselves, our time, 



THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY 



421 



As the teams provided could not haul enough flour to last the 
company to Utah, a sack weighing ninety-eight pounds was added 
to the load of each cart. One pound of flour a day was now 
allowed to each adult, and occasionally fresh beef. Soon after 
leaving Florence trouble began with the carts. The sand of the 
dry prairie got into the wooden hubs and ground the axles so that 
they broke, and constant delays were caused by the necessity of 
making repairs. No axle grease had been provided, and some 
of the company were compelled to use their precious allowance of 
bacon to grease the wheels. At Wood River, where the plains 
were alive with buffaloes, a stampede of the cattle occurred one 
night, and thirty of them were never recovered. The one yoke 
of oxen that was left to each wagon could not pull the load ; an 
attempt to use the milch cows and heifers as draught animals 
failed, and the tired cart pullers had to load up again with flour. 

While pursuing their journey in this manner, their camp was 
visited one evening by Apostle F. D. Richards and some other 
elders, on their way to Utah from mission work abroad. Richards 
severely rebuked Savage for advising that the trip be given up at 
Florence, and prophesied that the Lord would keep open a way 
before them. The missionaries, who were provided with carriages 
drawn by four horses each, drove on, without waiting to see this 
prediction confirmed. 

On arriving at Fort Laramie, about the first of September, 
another evidence of the culpable neglect of the church authorities 
manifested itself. The supply of provisions that was to have 
awaited them there was wanting. They calculated the amount 
that they had on hand, and estimated that it would last only until 
they were within 350 miles of Salt Lake City ; but, perhaps mak- 
ing the best of the situation, they voted to reduce the daily ration 
and to try to make the supply last by travelling faster. When 
they reached the neighborhood of Independence Rock, a letter 
sent back by Richards informed them that supplies would meet 
them at South Pass ; but another calculation showed that what 
remained would not last them to the Pass, and again the ration 
was reduced, working men now receiving twelve ounces a day, 
other adults nine, and children from four to eight. 

and our labor, subject to the appropriation of the Perpetual Emigration Fund Company 
until the full cost of our emigration is paid, with interest if required." 



422 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Another source of discomfort now manifested itself. In order 
to accommodate matters to the capacity of the carts, the elders in 
charge had made it one of the rules that each outfit should be 
limited to seventeen pounds of clothing and bedding. As they 
advanced up the Sweetwater it became cold. The mountains 
appeared snow-covered, and the lack of extra wraps and bedding 
caused first discomfort, and then intense suffering, to the half-fed 
travellers. The necessity of frequently wading the Sweetwater 
chilled the stronger men who were bearing the brunt of the labor, 
and when morning dawned the occupants of the tents found 
themselves numb with the cold, and quite unfitted to endure the 
hardships of the coming day. Chislett draws this picture of the 
situation at that time : — 

" Our old and infirm people began to droop, and they no sooner lost spirit 
and courage than death's stamp could be traced upon their features. Life went 
out as smoothly as a lamp ceases to burn when the oil is gone. At first the deaths 
occurred slowly and irregularly, but in a few days at more frequent intervals, until 
we soon thought it unusual to leave a camp ground without burying one or more 
persons. Death was not long confined in its ravages to the old and infirm, but 
the young and naturally strong were among its victims. Weakness and debility 
were accompanied by dysentery. This we could not stop or even alleviate, no 
proper medicines being in the camp ; and in almost every instance it carried off 
the parties attacked. It was surprising to an unmarried man to witness the devo- 
tion of men to their families and to their faith under these trying circumstances. 
Many a father pulled his cart, with his little children on it, until the day preced- 
ing his death. These people died with the calm faith and fortitude of martyrs. 1 ' 

An Oregonian returning East, who met two of the more fortu- 
nate of these hand-cart parties, gave this description to the Huron 
(Ohio) Reflector in 1857: — 

" It was certainly the most novel and interesting sight I have seen for many 
a day. We met two trains, one of thirty and the other of fifty carts, averaging 
about six to the cart. The carts were generally drawn by one man and three 
women each, though some carts were drawn by women alone. There were about 
three women to one man, and two-thirds of the women single. It was the most 
motley crew I ever beheld. Most of them were Danes, with a sprinkling of 
Welsh. Swedes, and English, and were generally from the lower classes of their 
countries. Most could not understand what we said to them. The road was 
lined for a mile behind the train with the lame, halt, sick, and needy. Many 
were quite aged, and would be going slowly along, supported by a son or daughter. 
Some were on crutches ; now and then a mother with a child in her arms and two 



THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY 



423 



or three hanging hold of her, with a forlorn appearance, would pass slowly along ; 
others, whose condition entitled them to a seat in a carriage, were wending their 
way through the sand. A few seemed in good spirits." 

The belated company did not meet any one to carry word of 
their condition to the valley, but among Richard's party who 
visited the camp at Wood River was Brigham Young's son, Joseph 
A. He realized the plight of the travellers, and when his father 
heard his report he too recognized the fact that aid must be sent at 
once. The son was directed to get together all the supplies he could 
obtain in the city or pick up on the way, and to start toward the 
East immediately. Driving on himself in a light wagon, he reached 
the advanced line, as they were toiling ahead through their first 
snowstorm. The provisions travelled slower, and could not reach 
them in less than one or two days longer. There was encourage- 
ment, of course, even in the prospect of release, but encouragement 
could not save those whose vitality was already exhausted. Camp 
was pitched that night among a grove of willows, where good fires 
were possible, but in the morning they awoke to find the snow a 
foot deep, and that five of their companions had been added to the 
death list during the night. 

To add to the desperate character of the situation came the 
announcement that the provisions were practically exhausted, the 
last of the flour having been given out, and all that remained being 
a few dried apples, a little rice and sugar, and about twenty-five 
pounds of hardtack. Two of the cattle were killed, and the camp 
were informed that they would have to subsist on the supplies in 
sight until aid reached them. The best thing to do in these cir- 
cumstances, indeed, the only thing, was to remain where they were 
and send messengers to advise the succoring party of the desper- 
ateness of their case. Their captain, Mr. Willie, and one com- 
panion acted as their messengers. They were gone three days, 
and in their absence Mr. Chislett had the painful duty of doling 
out what little food there was in camp. He speaks of his task as 
one that unmanned him. More cattle were killed, but beef with- 
out other food did not satisfy the hungry, and the epidemic of 
dysentery grew worse. The commissary officer was surrounded 
by a crowd of men and women imploring him for a little food, and 
it required all his power of reasoning to make them see that what 
little was left must be saved for the sick. 



424 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The party with aid from the valley had also encountered the 
snowstorm, and, not appreciating the desperate condition of the 
hand-cart immigrants, had halted to wait for better weather. As 
soon as Captain Willie took them the news, they hastened east- 
ward, and were seen by the starving party at sunset, the third day 
after their captain's departure. " Shouts of joy rent the air," says 
Chislett. " Strong men wept till tears ran freely down their fur- 
rowed and sunburnt cheeks, and little children partook of the joy 
which some of them hardly understood, and fairly danced around 
with gladness. Restraint was set aside in the general rejoicing, 
and, as the brethren entered our camp, the sisters fell upon them 
and deluged them with kisses." 

The timely relief saved many lives, but the end of the suffering 
had not been reached. A good many of the foot party were so 
exhausted by what they had gone through, that even their near 
approach to their Zion and their prophet did not stimulate them 
to make the effort to complete the journey. Some trudged along, 
unable even to pull a cart, and those who were still weaker were 
given places in the wagons. It grew colder, too, and frozen hands 
and feet became a common experience. Thus each day lessened 
by a few who were buried the number that remained. 

Then came another snowstorm. What this meant to a weak- 
ened party like this dragging their few possessions in carts can 
easily be imagined. One family after another would find that 
they could not make further progress, and when a hill was reached 
the human teams would have to be doubled up. In this way, 
by travelling backward and forward, some progress was made. 
That day's march was marked by constant additions to the strag- 
glers who kept dropping by the way. When the main body had 
made their camp for the night, some of the best teams were sent 
back for those who had dropped behind, and it was early morning 
before all of these were brought in. 

The next morning Captain Willie was assigned to take count 
of the dead. An examination of the camp showed thirteen corpses, 
all stiffly frozen. They were buried in a large square hole, three 
or four abreast and three deep. " When they did not fit in," says 
Chislett, " we put one or two crosswise at the head or feet of the 
others. We covered them with willows and then with the earth." 
Two other victims were buried before nightfall. Parties passing 



THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY 



425 



eastward by this place the following summer found that the wolves 
had speedily uncovered the corpses, and that their bones were 
scattered all over the neighborhood. 

Further deaths continued every day until they arrived at South 
Pass. There more assistance from the valley met them, the 
weather became warmer, and the health of the party improved, so 
that when they arrived at Salt Lake City they were in better con- 
dition and spirits. The date of their arrival there was November 9. 
The company which set out from Iowa City numbered about 500, 
of whom 400 set out from Florence across the plains. Of these 
400, 67 died on the way, and there were a few deaths after they 
reached the end of their journey. 

Another company of these hand-cart travellers left Florence 
still later than the ones whose sufferings have been described. They 
were in charge of an elder named Martin. Like their predeces- 
sors, they were warned against setting out so late as the middle of 
August, and many of them tried to give up the trip, but permission 
to do so was refused. Their sufferings began soon after they 
crossed the Platte, near Fort Laramie, and snow was encountered 
sixty miles east of Devil's Gate. When they reached that land- 
mark, they decided that they could make no further progress with 
their hand-carts. They accordingly took possession of half a 
dozen dilapidated log houses, the contents of the wagons were 
placed in some of these, the hand-carts were left behind, and as 
many people as the teams could drag were placed in the wagons 
and started forward. One of the survivors of this party has writ- 
ten : " The track of the emigrants was marked by graves, and 
many of the living suffered almost worse than death. Men may 
be seen to-day in Salt Lake City, who were boys then, hobbling 
around on their club-feet, all their toes having been frozen off in 
that fearful march." 1 Twenty men who were left at Devil's Gate 
had a terrible experience, being compelled, before assistance 
reached them, to eat even the pieces of hide wrapped round their 
cart-wheels, and a piece of buffalo skin that had been used as a 
door-mat. Strange to say, all of these men reached the valley 
alive. 

We have seen that Brigham Young was the inventor of this 
hand-cart immigration scheme. Alarmed by the result of the ex- 

1 " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 337. 



426 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



periment, as soon as the wretched remnant of the last two parties 
arrived in Salt Lake City, he took steps to place the responsibility 
for the disaster on other shoulders. The idea which he carried 
out was to shift the blame to F. D. Richards on the ground that 
he allowed the immigrants to start too late. In an address in the 
Tabernacle, while Captain Willie's party was approaching the 
city, he told the returned missionaries from England that they 
needed to be careful about eulogizing Richards and Spencer, lest 
they should have " the big head." When these men were in Salt 
Lake City he cursed them with the curse of the church. E. W. 
Tullidge, who was an editor of the Millennial Star in Liverpool 
under Richards when the hand-cart emigrants were collected, pro- 
posed, when in later years he was editing the Utah Magazine, to 
tell the facts about that matter ; but when Young learned this, he 
ordered Godbe, the controlling owner of the magazine, to destroy 
that issue, after one side of the sheets had been printed, and he 
was obeyed. 1 Fortunately Young was not able to destroy the 
files of the Millennial Star. 

There is much that is thoroughly typical of Mormonism in the 
history of these expeditions. No converts were ever instilled with 
a more confident belief in the divine character of the ridiculous 
pretender, Joseph Smith. To no persons were more flagrant mis- 
representations ever made by the heads of the church, and over 
none was the dictatorial authority of the church exercised more 
remorselessly. Not only was Utah held out to them as " a land 
where honest labor and industry meet with a suitable reward, and 
where the higher walks of life are open to the humblest and poor- 
est," 2 but they were informed that, if they had not faith enough 
to undertake the trip to Utah, they had not " faith sufficient to 
endure, with the Saints in Zion, the celestial law which leads to 
exaltation and eternal life." Young wrote to Richards , privately 
in October, 1855, "Adhere strictly to our former suggestion of 
walking them through across the plains with hand-carts"; 3 and 
Richards in an editorial in the Star thereupon warned the Saints : 
" The destroying angel is abroad. Pestilence and gaunt famine 
will soon increase the terrors of the scene to an extent as yet 

1 " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 342. 

2 Thirteenth General Epistle, Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 49. 
8 Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 61. 



THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY 



427 



without a parallel in the records of the human race. If the an- 
ticipated toils of the journey shake your faith in the promises of 
the Lord, it is high time that you were digging about the founda- 
tion of it, and seeing if it be founded on the root of the Holy 
Priesthood," etc. 

The direct effect of such teaching is shown in two letters 
printed in the Millennial Star of June 14, 1856. In the first of 
these, a sister, writing to her brother in Liverpool from Williams- 
burg, New York, confesses her surprise on learning that the jour- 
ney was to be made with hand-carts, says that their mother cannot 
survive such a trip, and that she does not think the girls can, points 
out that the limitation regarding baggage would compel them to 
sell nearly all their clothes, and proposes that they wait in New 
York or St. Louis until they could procure a wagon. In his reply 
the brother scorns this advice, says that he would not stop in New 
York if he were offered 10,000 besides his expenses, and adds : 
" Brothers, sisters, fathers or mothers, when they put a stumbling 
block in the way of my salvation, are nothing more to me than Gen- 
tiles. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and when 
we start we will go right up to Zion, if we go ragged and barefoot." 

Young found himself hard put to meet the church obligations 
in 1856, notwithstanding the economy of the hand-cart system ; and 
the Millennial Star oi December 27 announced that no assisted emi- 
grants would be sent out during the following year. Saints pro- 
posing to go through at their own expense were informed, however, 
that the church bureau would supply them with teams. Those pro- 
posing to use hand-carts were told of the " indispensable necessity " 
of having their whole outfit ready on their arrival at Iowa City, and 
the bureau offered to supply this at an estimated cost of £3 per 
head, any deficit to be made up on their arrival there. 1 

1 " The agency of the Mormon emigration at that time was a very profitable appoint- 
ment. By arrangement with ship brokers at Liverpool, a commission of half a guinea 
per head was allowed the agent for every adult emigrant that he sent across the Atlan- 
tic, and the railroad companies in New York allowed a percentage on every emigrant 
ticket. But a still larger revenue was derived from the outfitting on the frontiers. The 
agents purchased all the cattle, wagons, tents, wagon-covers, flour, cooking utensils, 
stoves, and the staple articles for a three months' journey across the Plains, and from 
them the Saints supplied themselves." — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 340. 



CHAPTER V 



EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY 

We have seen that Joseph Smith's desire was, when he sug- 
gested a possible removal of the church to the Far West, that they 
should have, not only an undisturbed place of residence, but a gov- 
ernment of their own. This idea of political independence Young 
never lost sight of. Had Utah remained a distant province of the 
Mexican government, the Mormons might have been allowed to 
dwell there a long time, practically without governmental control. 
But when that region passed under the government of the United 
States by the proclamation of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, on 
July 4, 1848, Brigham Young had to face a new situation. He then 
decided that what he wanted was an independent state government, 
not territorial rule under the federal authorities, and he planned 
accordingly. Every device was employed to increase the number 
of the Saints in Utah, to bring the population up to the figure re- 
quired for admission as a state, and he encouraged outlying settle- 
ments at every attractive point. In this way, by 185 1, Ogden and 
Provo had become large enough to form Stakes, and in a few years 
the country around Salt Lake City was dotted with settlements, 
many of them on lands to which the " Lamanites," who held so 
deep a place in Joseph Smith's heart, asserted in vain their ances- 
tral titles. 

The first General Epistle sent out from Great Salt Lake City, 
in 1849, thus explained the first government set up there, " In con- 
sequence of Indian depredations on our horses, cattle, and other 
property, and the wicked conduct of a few base fellows who came 
among the Saints, the inhabitants of this valley, as is common in 
new countries generally, have organized a temporary government 
to exist during its necessity, or until we can obtain a charter for a 
territorial government, a petition for which is already in progress." 

428 



EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY 



429 



On March 4, 1849, a convention, to which were invited all the 
inhabitants of upper California east of the Sierra Nevadas, was 
held in Great Salt Lake City to frame a system of government. 
The outcome was the adoption of a constitution for a state to be 
called the State of Deseret, and the election of a full set of state 
officers. The boundaries of this state were liberal. Starting at a 
point in what is now New Mexico, the line was to run down to the 
Mexican border, then west along the border of lower California to 
the Pacific, up the coast to 11 8° 30' west longitude, north to the 
dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevadas, and along their summit to 
the divide between the Columbia River and the Salt Lake Basin, 
and thence south to the place of beginning, "by the dividing range 
of mountains that separate the waters flowing into the Gulf of 
Mexico from the waters flowing into the Gulf of California." The 
constitution adopted followed the general form of such instruments 
in the United States. In regard to religion it declared, "All men 
have a natural and inalienable right to worship God according to 
the dictates of their own consciences ; and the General Assembly 
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro- 
hibiting the free exercise thereof, or disturb any person in his re- 
ligious worship or sentiments." 1 

An epistle of the Twelve to Orson Pratt in England, explain- 
ing this subject, said, "We have petitioned the Congress of the 
United States for the organization of a territorial government here. 
Until this petition is granted, we are under the necessity of organ- 
izing a local government for the time being." 2 The territorial 
government referred to was that of the State of Deseret, The 
local government mentioned was organized on March 12, by the 
election of Brigham Young as governor, H. C. Kimball as chief 
justice, John Taylor and N. K. Whitney as associate justices, and 
the Bishops of the wards as city magistrates, with minor positions 
filled. Six hundred and seventy-four votes were polled for this 
ticket. 

The General Assembly, chosen later, met on July 2, and 
adopted a memorial to Congress setting forth the failure of that 
body to provide any form of government .for the territory ceded 

1 For text of this constitution and the memorial to Congress, see Millennial Star % 
January 15, 1850. 

2 Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 244. 



430 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



by Mexico, 1 declaring that " the revolver and the bowie knife have 
been the highest law of the land," and asking for the admission of 
the State of Deseret into the Union. That same year the Califor- 
nians framed a government for themselves, and a plan was dis- 
cussed to consolidate California and Deseret until 185 1, when a 
separation should take place. The governor of California con- 
demned this scheme, and the legislature gave it no countenance. 

The Mormons had a confused idea about the government that 
they had set up. In the constitution adopted they called their 
domain the State of Deseret, but they allowed their legislature to 
elect their representative in Congress, sending A. W. Babbitt as 
their delegate to Washington, with their memorial asking for the 
admission of Deseret, or that they be given " such other form of 
civil government as your wisdom and magnanimity may award to 
the people of Deseret" The Mormons' old political friend in 
Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas, presented this memorial in the Sen- 
ate on December 27, 1849, with a statement that it was an applica- 
tion for admission as a state, but with the alternative of admission 
as a territory if Congress should so direct. The memorial was 
referred to the Committee on Territories. 

On the 31st of December, a counter memorial against the 
admission of the Mormon state was presented by Mr. Underwood 
of Kentucky, a Whig. This was signed by William Smith, the 
prophet's brother, and Isaac Sheen (who called themselves the 
" legitimate presidents" of the Mormon church), and by twelve 
other members. This memorial alleged that fifteen hundred of the 
emigrants from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City, before their departure 
for Illinois, took the following oath : — 

" You do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, his holy angels, 
and these witnesses, that you will avenge the blood of Joseph Smith upon this 
nation, and so teach your children ; and that you will from this day henceforth 
and forever begin and carry out hostility against this nation, and keep the same 
a profound secret now and ever. So help you God. 1 ' 

This memorial also set forth that the Mormons were practising 
polygamy in the Salt Lake Valley ; that since their arrival there 

1 "When Congress adjourned on March 4, 1849, all that had been done toward 
establishing some form of government for the immense domain acquired by the treaty 
with Mexico was to extend over it the revenue laws and make San Francisco a port of 
entry." — Bancroft's " Utah," p. 446. 



EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY 



431 



they had tried two Indian agents on a charge of participation in the 
expulsion of the Mormons from Missouri, and that they were, by 
their own assumed authority, imposing duties on all goods imported 
into the Salt Lake region from the rest of the United States. 
Senator Douglas, in an explanation concerning the latter charge, 
admitted that Delegate Babbitt acknowledged the levying of duties, 
the excuse being that the Mormons had found it necessary to set 
up a government for themselves, pending the action of Congress, 
and as a means of revenue they had imposed duties on all goods 
brought into and sold within the limits of Great Salt Lake City, 
but asserted that goods simply passing through were not molested. 
This tax seems to have been established entirely by the church 
authorities, the first of the " ordinances " of the Deseret legislature 
being dated January 15, 1850. 

The constitution of Deseret was presented to the House of 
Representatives by Mr. Boyd, a Kentucky Democrat, on January 
28, 1850, and referred to the Committee on Territories. On July 25, 
John Wentworth, an Illinois Democrat, presented a petition from 
citizens of Lee County, in his state, asking Congress to protect 
the rights of American citizens passing through the Salt Lake 
Valley, and charging on the organizers of the State of Deseret 
treason, a desire for a kingly government, murder, robbery, and 
polygamy. 

The Mormon memorial was taken up in the House of Repre- 
sentatives on July 18, after the committee had unanimously 
reported that " it is inexpedient to admit Almon W. Babbitt, Esq., 
to a seat in this body from the alleged State of Deseret." . A long 
debate on the admission of the delegate from New Mexico had 
deferred action. The chairman of the committee, Mr. Strong, a 
Pennsylvania Whig, explained that their report was founded on the 
terms of the Mormon memorial, which did not ask for Babbitt's 
reception as a delegate until some form of government was pro- 
vided for them. Mr. McDonald, an Indiana Whig, offered an 
amendment admitting Babbitt, and a debate of considerable length 
followed, in which the slavery question received some attention. 
The Committee of the Whole voted to report to the House the reso- 
lution against seating Babbitt, and then the House, by a vote of 
104 yeas to 78 nays, laid the resolution on the table (on motion of 
its friends), and tabled a motion for reconsideration. 



432 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



On the 9th of September following, the law for the admission 
of Utah as a territory was signed. The boundaries defined were 
California on the west, Oregon on the north, the summit of the 
Rocky Mountains on the east, and the 37th parallel of north lati- 
tude on the south. 



CHAPTER VI 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DESPOTISM 

There is no reason to believe that, to the date of Joseph 
Smith's death, Brigham Young had inspired his fellow-Mormons 
with an idea of his leadership. This was certified to by one of the 
most radical of them, Mayor Jedediah M. Grant of Salt Lake City, 
in 1852, in these words: — 

"When Joseph Smith lived — a man about whose real character and preten- 
sions we differ — Joseph was often and almost invariably imposed upon by those 
in whom he placed his trust. There was one man — only one of his early adhe- 
rents — he could always rely upon to stick to him closer than a brother, steadfast 
in faith, clear in counsel, and foremost in fight. He seemed a plain man in those 
days, of a wonderful talent for business and hundred horse-power of industry, but 
least of everything affecting cleverness or quickness. • Honest Brigham Young, 1 
or ' hard-working Brigham Young, 1 was nearly as much as you would ever hear 
him called, though he was the almost universal executor and trustee of men's 
wills and trusteed estates, and a confidential manager of our most intricate church 
affairs. 11 1 

When the Saints found themselves in Salt Lake Valley they 
had learned something from experience. They could not fail to 
realize that, distant as they now were from outside interference, 
union among themselves was an essential to success. The body of 
the church was soon composed of two elements — those who had 
constituted the church in the East, and the new members who were 
pouring in from Europe. Young established his leadership with 
both of these parties in the early days. There was much to dis- 
courage in those days — a soil to cultivate that required irrigation, 
houses to build where material was scarce, and starvation to fight 
year after year. Young encouraged everybody by his talk at the 
church meetings, shared in the manual labor of building houses 
and cultivating land, and devised means to entertain and encourage 

1 Grant's pamphlet, "Truth about the Mormons." 
2F 433 



434 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



those who were disposed to look on their future darkly. No one 
ever heard him, whatever others might say, doubt the genuineness 
of Joseph Smith's inspiration and revelations, and he so established 
his own position as Smith's successor that he secured the devout 
allegiance of the old flock, without making such business mistakes 
as weakened Smith's reputation. " I believed," says John D. Lee, 
one of the most trusted and prominent of the church members 
almost to the day of his death, "that Brigham Young spoke by the 
direction of the God of heaven. I would have suffered death 
rather than have disobeyed any command of his." Said Young's 
associate in the First Presidency, Heber C. Kimball, " To me the 
word comes from Brother Brigham as the word of God," and 
again, " His word is the word of God to his people." 1 

The new-comers from Europe were simply helpless. They 
were, in the first place, religious enthusiasts, who believed, when 
they set out on their journey, that they were going to a real Zion. 
Large numbers of them were indebted to the church for at least a 
part of their passage money from the day of their arrival. Few 
of those who had paid their own way brought much cash capital, 
all depending on the representations about the richness of the 
valley which had been held out to them. Once there, they soon 
realized that all must sustain the same policy if the church was to 
be a success. They were, too, of that superstitious class which 
was ready, not only to believe in modern miracles, " signs," and rev- 
elations, but actually hungered for such manifestations, and, once 
accepting membership in the church, they accepted with it the 
dictation of the head of the church in all things. Secretary Fuller 
has told me that, after he ascertained the existence of gold near 
Salt Lake City, he said to an intelligent goldsmith there, "Why 
do you not look for the gold you need in your business in the 
mountains ? " " Why," was the reply, " if I went to the mountains 
and found gold, and put it into my pouch, the pouch would be 
empty when I got back to the city. I know this is so, because 
Brigham Young has told me so." 

The extent of the dictatorship which Young prescribed and 
carried out in all matters, spiritual and commercial, might be 
questioned if we were not able to follow the various steps taken 
in establishing his authority, and to illustrate its scope, by the 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 47. 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DESPOTISM 



435 



testimony, not of men who suffered from it, but by his own words 
and those of his closest associates. With a blindness which seems 
incomprehensible, the sermons, or "discourses," delivered in the 
early days in Salt Lake City were printed under church authority, 
and are preserved in the Journal of Discourses. The student of 
this chapter of the church's history can obtain what information 
he wants by reading the volumes of this Journal. The language 
used is often coarse, but there is never any difficulty in under- 
standing the speakers. 

Young referred to his own plain speaking in a discourse on 
October 6, 1855. He said that he had received advice about 
bridling his tongue — a wheelbarrow load of such letters from the 
East, especially on the subject of his attacks on the Gentiles. 
" Do you know," he asked, " how I feel when I get such com- 
munications ? I will tell you. I feel just like rubbing their noses 
with them." 1 In a discourse on February 17, 1856, he vouchsafed 
this explanation, " If I were preaching abroad in the world, I 
should feel myself somewhat obliged, through custom, to adhere 
to the wishes and feelings of the people in regard to pursuing the 
thread of any given subject; but here I feel as free as air." 2 

Mention has already been made of Young's refusal to continue 
Smith's series of " revelations." In doing this he never admitted 
for a moment any lack of authority as spokesman for the Al- 
mighty. A few illustrations will make clear his position in this 
matter. Defining his view of his own authority, before the Gen- 
eral Conference in Salt Lake City, on April 6, 1850, he said, 
" It is your privilege and it is mine to receive revelation ; and my 
privilege to dictate to the church." 3 

When the site of the Temple was consecrated, in 1853, there 
were many inquiries whether a revelation had been given about its 
construction. Young said, " If the Lord and all the people want 
a revelation, I can give one concerning this Temple " ; but he did 
not do so, declaring that a revelation was no more necessary con- 
cerning the building of a temple than it was concerning a kitchen 
or a bedroom. 4 We must certainly concede to this man a dictator's 
daring. 

An early illustration of Young's policy toward all Mormon 



1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 48. 8 Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 273. 

2 Ibid., p. 211. 4 Ibid., Vol. XV, p. 391. 



436 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



offenders was given in the case of the so-called " Gladdenites." 
There were members of the church even in Utah who were ready 
to revolt when the open announcement of the " revelation " regard- 
ing polygamy was made in 1852, and they found a leader in Glad- 
den Bishop, who had had much experience in apostasy, repentance, 
and readmission. 1 These men held meetings and made consider- 
able headway, but when the time came for Brigham to exercise 
his authority he did it. 

On Sunday, March 20, 1853, a meeting, orderly in every re- 
spect, which the Gladdenites were holding in front of the Council 
House, was dispersed by the city marshal, and another, called for 
the next Sunday, was prohibited entirely. Then Alfred Smith, a 
leading Gladdenite, who had accused Young of robbing him of his 
property, was arrested and locked up until he gave a promise to 
discontinue his rebellion. On the 27th of March Young made the 
Gladdenites the subject of a large part of his discourse in the Tab- 
ernacle. What he said is thus stated in the church report of the 
address : — 

" I say to those persons : You must not court persecution here, lest you get 
so much of it you will not know what to do with it. Do not court persecution. 
We have known Gladden Bishop for more than twenty years, and know him to 
be a poor, dirty curse. ... I say again, you Gladdenites, do not court perse- 
cution, or you will get more than you want, and it will come quicker than you 
want it. I say to you Bishops, do not allow them to preach in your wards." (After 
telling of a dream he had had, in which he saw two men creep into the bed where 
one of his wives was lying, whereupon he took a large bowie knife and cut one of 
their throats from ear to ear, saying, " Go to hell across lots,' 1 he continued :) " I 
say, rather than that apostates should nourish here I will unsheath my bowie knife 
and conquer or die." (Great commotion in the congregation, and a simultaneous 
burst of feeling, assenting to the declaration.) " Now, you nasty apostates, clear 
out, or judgment will be put to the line and righteousness to the plummet." (Voices 
generally, " Go it," "go it.") " If you say it is all right, raise your hand." (All 
hands up.) " Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in this and every good work." 2 

This was the practical end of Gladdenism. 

Young's dictatorship was quite as broad and determined in 
things temporal as in things spiritual. He made no concealment 
of the fact that he was a money-getter, only insisting on his read- 

1 " This Gladden gave Joseph much trouble ; was cut off from the church and taken 
back and rebaptized nine times." — Ferris, "Utah and the Mormons," p. 326. 

2 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 82. 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DESPOTISM 



437 



iness to contribute to the support of church enterprises. The 
canons through the mountains which shut in the valley were the 
source of wood supply for the city, and their control was very val- 
uable. Young brought this matter before the Conference of Oc- 
tober 9, 1852, speaking on it at length, and finally putting his own 
view in the form of a resolution that the canons be placed in the 
hands of individuals, who should make good roads through them, 
and obtain their pay by taking toll at the entrance. After getting 
the usual unanimous vote on his proposition, he said : " Let the 
Judges of the County of Great Salt Lake take due notice and gov- 
ern themselves accordingly. . . . This is my order for the Judges 
to take due notice of. It does not come from the Governor, but 
from the President of the church. You will not see any proclama- 
tion in the paper to this effect, but it is a mere declaration of the 
President of the Conference." 1 The " declaration," of course, had 
all the effect of a law, and Young got one of the best canons. 

Very early in his rule Young defined his views about the prop- 
erty rights of the Saints. "A man," he declared in the Tabernacle 
on June 5, 1853, " has no right with property which, according to the 
laws of the land, legally belongs to him, if he does not want to use 
it. . . . When we first came into the valley, the question was 
asked me if men would ever be allowed to come into this church, 
and remain in it, and hoard up their property. I say, no." 2 

Another view of property rights was thus set forth in his dis- 
course of December 5, 1853 : — 

"If an Elder has borrowed [a hundred or a thousand dollars from you], and 
you find he is going to apostatize, then you may tighten the screws on him. 
But if he is willing to preach the Gospel without purse or scrip, it is none of 
your business what he does with the money he has borrowed from you." 3 

Addressing the people in the trying business year of 1856, 
when his own creditors were pushing him hard, Young said : — 

" I wish to give you one text to preach upon, 1 From this time henceforth do 
not fret thy gizzard.' I will pay you when I can and not before. Now I hope 
you will apostatize if you would rather do it." 4 

Kimball, in giving Young's order to some seventy men, who had 
displeased him, to leave the territory, used these words : " When 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, pp. 217, 2 1 8. 8 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 340. 

2 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 252-253. * Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 4. 



433 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



a man is appointed to take a mission, unless he has a just and 
honorable reason for not going, if he does not go he will be sev- 
ered from the church. Why ? Because you said you were willing 
to be passive, and, if you are not passive, that lump of clay must 
be cut off from the church and laid aside, and a lump put on that 
will be passive." 1 

With this testimony of men inside the church may be placed 
that of Captain Howard Stansbury, of the United Stated Topo- 
graphical Engineers, who arrived in the valley in August, 1849, 
under instructions from the government to make a survey of the 
lakes of that region. The Mormons thought that it was the inten- 
tion of the government to divide the land into townships and sec- 
tions, and to ignore their claim to title by occupation. In his 
official report, after mentioning his haste to disabuse Young's 
mind on this point, Captain Stansbury says, " I was induced to 
pursue this conciliatory course, not only in justice to the govern- 
ment, but also because I knew, from the peculiar organization of 
this singular community, that, unless the ' President ' was fully 
satisfied that no evil was intended to his people, it would be use- 
less for me to attempt to carry out my instructions." The choice 
between abject conciliation or open conflict was that which Brig- 
ham Young extended to nearly every federal officer who entered 
Utah during his reign. 

The Mormons of Utah started in to assert their independence 
of the government of the United States in every way. The rejec- 
tion of the constitution of Deseret by Congress did not hinder the 
elected legislature from meeting and passing laws. The ninth 
chapter of the " ordinances," as they were called, passed by this 
legislature (on January 19, 185 1) was a charter for Great Salt 
Lake City. This charter provided for the election of a mayor, 
four aldermen, nine councillors, and three judges, the first judges 
to be chosen viva voce, and their successors by the City Council. 
The appointment of eleven subordinate officers was placed in the 
Council's hands. The mayor and aldermen were to be the justices 
of the peace, with a right of appeal to the municipal court, con- 
sisting of the same persons sitting together, and from that to the 
probate court. The first mayor, aldermen, and councillors were 
appointed by the governor of the State of Deseret. Similar 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 242. 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DESPOTISM 



439 



charters were provided for Ogden, Provo City, and other settle- 
ments. 

As soon as Salt Lake City was laid off into wards, Young had 
a Bishop placed over each of these, and, always under his direction, 
these Bishops practically controlled local affairs to the date of the 
city charter, Each Bishop came to be a magistrate of his ward, 1 
and under them in all the settlements all public work was carried 
on and all revenue collected. The High Council of ten is defined 
by Tullidge as " a quorum of judges, in equity for the people, at 
the head of which is the President of the state." 

These men did not hesitate to attempt a currency of their own. 
On the arrival of the Mormons in the valley, they first made their 
exchanges through barter. Paper currency was issued in 1849 an< ^ 
some years later. When gold dust from California appeared in 
1849, some of it was coined in Salt Lake City by means of home- 
made dies and crucibles. The denominations were $2.50, $5, $10, 
and $20. Some of these coins, made without alloy, were stamped 
with a bee-hive and eagle on one side, and on the reverse with the 
motto, "Holiness to the Lord" in the so-called Deseret alphabet. 
This alphabet was invented after their arrival in Salt Lake Valley, 
to assist in separating the Mormons from the rest of the nation, its 
preparation having been intrusted to a committee of the board of 
regents in 1853. It contained thirty-two characters. A primer 
and two books of the Mormon Bible were printed in the new 
characters, the legislature in 1855 having voted $2500 to meet the 
expense; but the alphabet was never practically used, and no 
attempt is any longer made to remember it. Early in 1849 the 
High Council voted that the Kirtland bank-bills (of which a supply 
must have remained unissued) be put out on a par with gold, and in 
this they saw a fulfilment of the prophet's declaration that these 
notes would some day be as good as gold. 

Another early ordinance passed by the Deseret legislature 
incorporated " The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," 

1 Brigham Young testified in the Tabernacle as to the kind of justice that was meted 
out in the Bishops' courts. In his sermon of March 6, 1856, he said: "There are men 
here by the score who do not know their right hands from their left, so far as the prin- 
ciples of justice are concerned. Does our High Council? No, for they will let men 
throw dirt in their eyes until you cannot find the one hundred millionth part of an ounce 
of common sense in them. You may go to the Bishops' courts, and what are they? A 
set of old grannies. They cannot judge a case pending between two old women, to say 
nothing of a case between man and man." — Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 225. 



440 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



authorizing the appointment of a trustee in trust to hold and 
manage all the property of the church, which should be free from 
tax, and giving the church complete authority to make its own 
regulations, " provided, however, that each and every act or prac- 
tice so established, or adopted for law or custom, shall relate to 
solemnities, sacraments, ceremonies, consecrations, endowments, 
tithing, marriages, fellowship, or the religious duties of man to his 
Maker, inasmuch as the doctrines, principles, practices, or perform- 
ances support virtue and increase morality, and are not inconsistent 
with or repugnant to the constitution of the United States or of 
this State, and are founded on the revelations of the Lord." Thus 
early was the ground taken that the practice of polygamy was a 
constitutional right. Brigham Young was chosen as the trustee. 

The second ordinance passed by this legislature incorporated 
the University of the State of Deseret, at Salt Lake City, to be 
governed by a chancellor and twelve regents. 

The earliest non-Mormons to experience the effect of that abso- 
lute Mormon rule, the consequences of which the Missourians had 
feared, were the emigrants who passed through Salt Lake Valley 
on their way to California after the discovery of gold, or on their 
way to Oregon. The complaints of the Calif ornians were set forth 
in a little book, written by one of them, Nelson Slater, and printed 
in Colona, California, in 185 1, under the title, " Fruits of Mormon- 
ism." The general complaints were set forth briefly in a petition 
to Congress containing nearly two hundred and fifty signatures, 
dated Colona, June 1, 185 1, which asked that the territorial gov- 
ernment be abrogated, and a military government be established in 
its place. This petition charged that many emigrants had been 
murdered by the Mormons when there was a suspicion that they 
had taken part in the earlier persecutions ; that when any members 
of the Mormon community, becoming dissatisfied, tried to leave, 
they were pursued and killed ; that the Mormons levied a tax of 
two per cent on the property of emigrants who were compelled to 
pass a winter among them; that it was nearly impossible for emi- 
grants to obtain justice in the Mormon courts ; that the Mormons, 
high and low, openly expressed treasonable sentiments against the 
United States government ; and that letters of emigrants mailed at 
Salt Lake City were opened, and in many instances destroyed. 

Mr. Slater's book furnishes the specifications of these general 
charges. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE "REFORMATION" 

Young soon had occasion to make practical use of the dictato- 
rial power that he had assumed. The character which those mem- 
bers of the flock who had migrated from Missouri and Illinois had 
established among their neighbors in those states was not changed 
simply by their removal to a wilderness all by themselves. They 
had no longer the old excuse that their misdeeds w r ere reprisals on 
persecuting enemies, but this did not save them from the tempta- 
tion to exercise their natural propensities. Again we shall take 
only the highest Mormon testimony on this subject. 

One of the first sins for which Young openly reproved his con- 
gregation was profane swearing. He brought this matter point- 
edly to their attention in an address to the Conference of October 
9, 1852, when he said: "You Elders of Israel will go into the 
canons, and curse and swear — damn and curse your oxen, and 
swear by Him who created you. I am telling the truth. Yes, you 
rip and curse and swear as bad as any pirates ever did." 1 

Possibly the church authorities could have overlooked the 
swearing, but a matter which gave them more distress was the 
insecurity of property. This became so great an annoyance that 
Young spoke out plainly on the subject, and he did not attempt to 
place the responsibility outside of his own people. A few citations 
will illustrate this. 

In an address in the Tabernacle on June 5, 1853, noticing com- 
plaints about the stealing and rebranding of cattle, he said : " I 
will propose a plan to stop the stealing of cattle in coming time, 
and it is this — let those who have cattle on hand join in a company, 
and fence in about fifty thousand acres of land, and so keep on 
fencing until all the vacant land is substantially enclosed. Some 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 211. 
441 



442 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



persons will perhaps say, ' I do not know how good or how high a 
fence it will be necessary to build to keep thieves out' I do not 
know either, except you build one that will keep out the devil." 1 
On another occasion, with a personal grievance to air, he said in 
the Tabernacle : " I have gone to work and made roads to get 
wood, and have not been able to get it. I have cut it down and 
piled it up, and still have not got it. I wonder if anybody else 
can say so. Have any of you piled up your wood, and, when you 
have gone back, could not find it ? Some stories could be told of 
this kind that would make professional thieves ashamed." 2 

Young made no concealment of the fact that men high in the 
councils of the church were among the peculators. In his dis- 
course of June 15, 1856, he said: "I have proof ready to show 
that Bishops have taken in thousands of pounds in weight of tith- 
ing which they have never reported to the General Tithing Office. 
We have documents to show that Bishops have taken in hundreds 
of bushels of wheat, and only a small portion of it has come into the 
General Tithing Office. They stole it to let their friends speculate 
upon." 3 

The new-comers from Europe also received his attention. 
Referring to unkept promises of speedy repayment by assisted 
immigrants of advances made to them, Young said, in 1855 : "And 
what will they do when they get here ? Steal our wagons, and go 
off with them to Canada, and try to steal the bake-kettles, frying- 
pans, tents, and wagon-covers ; and will borrow the oxen and run 
away with them, if you do not watch them closely. Do they all 
do this? No, but many of them will try to do it." 4 And again, 
a month later : " What previous characters some of you had in 
Wales, in England, in Scotland, and perhaps in Ireland. Do not 
be scared if it is proven against some one in the Bishop's court 
that you did steal the poles from your neighbor's garden fence. 
If it is proven that you have been to some person's wood pile and 
stolen wood, don't be frightened, for if you will steal it must be 
made manifest." 5 J. M. Grant was quite as plain spoken. In an 
address in the bowery in Salt Lake City in September, 1856, he 
declared that " you can scarcely find a place in this city that is not 
full of filth and abominations." 6 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol.1, p. 252. * Ibid., Vol. I, p. 213. 3 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 342. 
4 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 3. 5 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 49. 6 Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 5 1 . 



THE "REFORMATION" 



443 



Young's denunciations were not quietly accepted, but protests 
and threats were alike wasted upon him. Referring to complaints 
of some of the flock that his denunciation was more than they 
could bear, he replied, " But you have got to bear it, and, if you 
will not, make up your minds to go to hell at once and have done 
with it." 1 On another occasion he said, "You need, figuratively, 
to have it rain pitchforks, tines downward, from this pulpit, Sun- 
day after Sunday." On another occasion, alluding to letters he 
had received, warning him against attacking men's characters, he 
said, "When such epistles come to me, I feel like saying, I ask 
no advice of you nor of all your clan this side of hell." 2 

When mere denunciation did not reform his followers, Young 
became still plainer in his language, and began to explain to them 
the latitude which the church proposed to take in applying pun- 
ishment. In a remarkable sermon on October 6, 1855, on the 
"stealing, lying, deceiving, wickedness, and covetousness " of the 
elders in Israel, he spoke as follows : — 

" Live on here, then, you poor miserable curses, until the time of retribution, 
when your heads will have to be severed from your bodies. Just let the Lord 
Almighty say, Lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet, 3 and 
the time of thieves is short in this community. What do you suppose they 
would say in old Massachusetts should they hear that the Latter-day Saints had 
received a revelation or commandment to i lay judgment to the line and right- 
eousness to the plummet ' ? What would they say in old Connecticut ? They 
would raise a universal howl of, ' How wicked the Mormons are. They are kill- 
ing the evil doers who are among them. Why, I hear that they kill the wicked 
away up yonder in Utah.' . . . What do I care for the wrath of man? No 
more than I do for the chickens that run in my door yard. I am here to teach 
the ways of the Lord, and lead men to life everlasting ; but if they have not a 
mind to go there, I wish them to keep out of my path." 4 

From this time Young and his closest associates seemed to 
make no concealment of their intention to take the lives of any 
persons whom they considered offenders. One or two more cita- 
tions from his discourses may be made to sustain this statement. 
On February 24, 1856, he declared, "I am not afraid of all hell, 
nor of all the world,- in laying judgment to the line when the Lord 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 49. 2 Ibid. , p. 50. 

3 These words, from Isaiah xxviii. 17, are constantly used by Young to denote the 
extreme punishment which the church might inflict on any offender. 

4 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 50. 



444 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



says so." 1 In the following month he told his congregation : 
"The time is coming when justice will be laid to the line and 
righteousness to the plummet ; when we shall take the old broad- 
sword and ask, Are you for God ? And if you are not heartily 
on the Lord's side, you will be hewn down." 2 Heber C. Kimball 
was equally plain spoken. A year earlier he had said in the 
Tabernacle : "If a man rebels, I will tell him of it, and if he 
resents a timely warning, he is unwise. ... I have never yet 
shed man's blood, and I pray to God that I never may, unless it is 
actually necessary." 3 Sultans and doges have freely used assas- 
sination as a weapon, but it seems to have remained for the 
Mormon church under Brigham Young to declare openly its in- 
tention to make whatever it might call church apostasy subject 
to capital punishment. 

Out of the lawless condition of the Mormon flock, as we have 
thus seen it pictured, and out of this radical view of the proper 
punishment of offenders, resulted, in 1856, that remarkable move- 
ment still known in Mormondon as " The Reformation " — a move- 
ment that has been characterized by one writer as " a reign of lust 
and fanatical fury unequalled since the Dark Ages," and by another 
as " a fanaticism at once blind, dangerous, and terrible." During 
its continuance the religious zealot, the amorous priest, the jeal- 
ous lover, the man covetous of worldly goods, and the framers of 
the church policy, from acknowledged Apostle to secret Danite, 
all had their own way. " Were I counsel for a Mormon on trial 
for a crime committed at the time under consideration, I should 
plead wholesale insanity," said J. H. Beadle. It was during this 
period that that system was perfected under which the life of no 
man, — or company of men, — against whom the wrath of the 
church was directed, was of any value ; no household was safe 
from the lust of any aged elder; no person once in the valley 
could leave it alive against the church's consent. 

The active agent in starting "The Reformation" was the inventor 
of " blood atonement," Jedediah M. Grant. 4 That his censure of 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 241. 2 Ibid., p. 266. 

3 Ibid., pp. 163-164. 

4 A correspondent of the New York Times at this date described Grant as " a tall, 
thin, repulsive-looking man, of acute, vigorous intellect, a thorough-paced scoundrel, 
and the most essential blackguard in the pulpit. He was sometimes called Brigham's 
sledge hammer." 



THE "REFORMATION 



445 



a Bishop and his counsellors at Kayesville was the actual origin of 
the movement, as has been stated, 1 cannot be accepted as proven, 
in view of the preparation made for the era of blood, as indicated 
in the church discourses. Lieutenant Gunnison, for whom the 
Mormons in later years always asserted their friendship, writing 
concerning his observations as early as 1852, said : — 

" Witnesses are seldom put on oath in the lower courts, and there is nothing 
known of the ' law's delay, 1 and the quibbles whereby the ends of truth and justice 
may be defeated. But they have a criminal code called ' The Laws of the Lord, 1 
which has been given by revelation and not promulgated, the people not being 
able quite to bear it, or the organization still too imperfect. It is to be put in 
force, however, before long, and when in vogue, all grave crimes will be punished 
and atoned for by cutting off the head of the offender. This regulation arises 
from the fact that 1 without shedding of blood there is no remission. 1 " 2 

Gunnison's statement furnishes indisputable proof that this 
legal system was so generally talked of some four years before it 
was put in force that it came to the ears of a non-Mormon tempo- 
rary resident. 

After the condemnation of the Kayesville offenders and their 
rebaptism, the next move was the appointment of missionaries to 
hold services in every ward, and the sending out of what were 
really confessors, appointed for every block, to inquire of all — 
young and old — concerning the most intimate details of their 
lives. The printed catechism given to these confessors was so 
indelicate that it was suppressed in later years. These prying 
inquisitors found opportunity to gain information for their superiors 
about any persons suspected of disloyalty, and one use they made 
of their visitations was to urge the younger sisters to be married 
to the older men, as a readier means of salvation than union with 
men of their own age. That there was opposition to this espionage 
is shown by some remarks of H. C. Kimball in the Tabernacle, in 
March, 1856, when he said: " I have heard some individuals say- 
ing that, if the Bishops came into their houses and opened their 
cupboards, they would split their heads open. That would not be 
a wise or safe operation." 3 

Some of the information secured by the church confessional 

1 " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 293. 

2 "History of the Mormons," p. 83. 

8 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, p. 271. 



44^ 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



was embarrassing to the leaders. At a meeting of male members 
in Social Hall, Young, Grant, and others denounced the sinners in 
scathing terms, Young ending his remarks by saying, " All you 
who have been guilty of committing adultery, stand up." At once 
more than three-quarters of those present arose. 1 For such con- 
fessors a way of repentance was provided through rebaptism, but 
the secretly accused had no such avenue opened to them. 

One of the first victims of the reformers was H. J. Jarvis, 
a reputable merchant of Salt Lake City. He was dragged over 
his counter one evening and thrown into the street by men who 
then robbed his store and defiled his household goods, giving him 
as the cause of the visitation the explanation that he had spoken 
evil of the authorities, and had invited Gentiles to supper. His 
two wives could not secure even a hearing from Young in his 
behalf. 2 This, however, was a minor incident. 

That Young's rule should be objected to by some members of 
the church was inevitable. There were men in the valley at that 
early day who would rebel against such a dictatorship under any 
name; others — men of means — who were alarmed by the declara- 
tions about property rights, and others to whom the announcement 
concerning polygamy was repugnant. When such persons gave 
expression to their discontent, they angered the church officers; 
when they indicated their purpose to leave the valley, they alarmed 
them. Anything like an exodus of the flock would have broken 
up all of Young's plans, and have undone the scheme of immigra- 
tion that had cost so much time and money. Accordingly, when 
this movement for " reform " began, the church let it be known 
that any desertion of the flock would be considered the worst form 
of apostasy, and that the deserter must take the consequences. To 
quote Brigham Young's own words : " The moment a person 
decides to leave this people, he is cut off from every object that is 
desirable for time and eternity. Every possession and object of 

1 " A leading Bishop in Salt Lake City stated to the author that Brigham was as 
much appalled at this sight as was Macbeth when he beheld the woods of Birnam march- 
ing on to Dunsinane. A Bishop arose and asked if there were not some misunderstand- 
ing among the brethren concerning the question. He thought that perhaps the elders 
understood Brigham's inquiry to apply to their conduct before they had thrown off the 
works of the devil and embraced Mormonism; but upon Brigham reiterating that it was 
the adultery committed since they had entered the church, the brethren to a man still 
stood up." — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 296. 

2 " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 297. 



THE "REFORMATION" 



447 



affection will be taken from those who forsake the truth, and their 
identity and existence will eventually cease." 1 

The almost unbreakable hedge that surrounded the inhabitants 
of the valley at this time, under the system of church espionage, 
has formed a subject for the novelist, and has seemed to many per- 
sons, as described, a probable exaggeration. But, while Young did 
not narrate in his pulpit the tales of blood which his instructions 
gave rise to, there is testimony concerning them which leaves no 
reasonable doubt of their truthfulness. 



1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 31. 



CHAPTER VIII 



SOME CHURCH-INSPIRED MURDERS 

The murders committed during the " Reformation " which at- 
tracted most attention, both because of the parties concerned, the 
effort made by a United States judge to convict the guilty, and 
the confessions of the latter subsequently obtained, have been known 
as the Parrish, or Springville, murders. The facts concerning 
them may be stated fairly as follows : — 

William R. Parrish was one of the most outspoken champions 
of the Twelve when the controversy with Rigdon occurred at 
Nauvoo after Smith's death, and he accompanied the fugitives 
to Salt Lake Valley. One evening, early in March, 1857, a Bishop 
named Johnson (husband of ten wives), with two companions, 
called at Parrish's house in Springville, and put to him some of 
the questions which the inquisitors of the day were wont to ask — 
if he prayed, something about his future plans, etc. It had been 
rumored that Parrish's devotion to the church had cooled, and that 
he was planning to move with his family — a wife and six children 
— to California ; and at a meeting in Bishop Johnson's council house 
a letter had been read from Brigham Young directing them to 
ascertain the intention of certain suspicious characters in the neigh- 
borhood, 1 " and if they should make a break and, being pursued, 
which he required, he ' would be sorry to hear a favorable report ; 
but the better way is to lock the stable door before the horse is 
stolen.' This letter was over Brigham's signature." 2 This letter 
was the real cause of the Bishop's visit to Parrish. At a meeting 
about a week later, A. Durfee and G. Potter were deputed to find 

1 " There had been public preaching in Springville to the effect that no Apostles 
would be allowed to leave; if they did, hog-holes in the fences would be stopped up 
with them. I heard these sermons." — Affidavit of Mrs. Parrish; appendix to "Speech 
of Hon. John Cradlebaugh." 

2 Confession of J. M. Stewart, one of the Bishop's counsellors and precinct magis- 
trate. 

448 



SOME CHURCH-INSPIRED MURDERS 



449 



out when the Parrishes proposed to leave the territory. Accord- 
ingly, Durfee got employment with Parrish, and both of them 
gave him the idea that they sympathized with his desire to depart. 
One morning, about a week later, Parrish discovered that his horses 
had been stolen, and efforts to recover them were fruitless. 

Meanwhile, Parrish, unsuspicious of Potter and Durfee, 1 was 
telling them of his continued plans to escape, how constantly his 
house was watched, and how difficult it was for him to get out the 
few articles required for the trip. Finally, at Parrish's suggestion, 
it was arranged that he and Durfee should walk out of the village 
in the daytime, as the method best calculated to allay suspicion. 
They carried out this plan, and when they got to a stream called 
Dry Creek, Parrish asked Durfee to go back to the house and 
bring his two sons, Beason and Orrin, to join him. When Durfee 
returned to the house, at about sunset, he found Potter there, 
and Potter set off at once for the meeting-place, ostensibly to carry 
some of the articles needed for the journey. 

Potter met Parrish where he was waiting for Durfee' s return, 
and they walked down a lane to a fence corner, where a Mor- 
mon named William Bird was lying, armed with a gun. Here 
occurred what might be called an illustration of " poetic justice." 
In the twilight, Bird mistook his victim, and fired, killing Potter. 
As Bird rose and stepped forward, Parrish asked if it was he 
who had fired the unexpected shot. For a reply Bird drew a knife, 
clenched with Parrish, and, as he afterward expressed it, " worked 
the best he could in stabbing him." He "worked" so well that, 
as afterward described by one of the men concerned in the plot, 2 
the old man was cut all over, fifteen times in the back, as well as 
in the left side, the arms, and the hands. But Bird knew that his 
task was not completed, and, as soon as the murder of the elder 
Parrish was accomplished, taking his own and Potter's gun, he 
again concealed himself in the fence corner, awaiting the appear- 
ance of the Parrish boys. They soon came up in company with 
Durfee, and Bird fired at Beason with so good aim that he dropped 
dead at once. Turning the weapon on Orrin, the first cap snapped, 
but he tried again and put a ball through Orrin 's cartridge box. 
The lad then ran and found refuge in the house of an uncle. 

1 Durfee's confession, appendix to Cradlebaugh's speech. 

2 Affidavit of J. Bartholemew before Judge Cradlebaugh. 

2G 



450 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The outcome of this crime ? The arrest of Orrin and Durf ee 
as the murderers by a Mormon officer; a farcical hearing by a 
coroner's jury, with a verdict of assassins unknown; distrusted 
participants in the crime themselves the object of the Mormon spies 
and would-be assassins ; the robbery of a neighbor who dared to 
condemn the crime; a vain appeal by Mrs. Parrish to Brigham 
Young, who told her he "would have stopped it had he known 
anything about it," and who, when she persisted in seeking another 
interview, had her advised to " drop it," and a failure by the widow 
to secure even the stolen horses. " The wife of Mr. Parrish told 
me," said Judge Cradlebaugh, when he charged the jury concern- 
ing this case, "that since then at times she had lived on bread 
and water, and still there are persons in this community riding 
about on those horses." 

The effort to have the men concerned in this and similar crimes 
convicted, forms a part of the history of Judge Cradlebaugh' s judi- 
cial career after the "Mormon War," but it failed. When the 
grand jury would not bring in indictments, he issued bench war- 
rants for the arrest of the accused, and sent the United States 
marshal, sustained by a military posse, to serve the papers. It 
was thus that the affidavits and confessions cited were obtained. 
Then followed a stampede among the residents of the Springville 
neighborhood, as the judge explained in his subsequent speech in 
Congress, the church officials and civil officers being prominent in 
the flight, and, when their houses were reached, they were occupied 
only by many wives and many children. " I am justified," he told 
the House of Representatives, "in charging that the Mormons are 
guilty, and that the Mormon church is guilty, of the crimes of 
murder and robbery, as taught in their books of faith." 1 

Another of the murders under this dispensation, which Judge 
Cradlebaugh mentioned as "peculiarly and shockingly prominent," 
was that of the Aikin party, in the spring of 1857. This party, 

1 " I say as a fact that there was no escape for any one that the leaders of the 
church in southern Utah selected as a victim. ... It was a rare thing for a man to 
escape from the territory with all his property until after the Pacific Railroad was built 
through Utah." — Lee, " Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 275, 287. 

Charles Nordhoff, in a Utah letter to the New York Evening Post in May, 1871, 
said : " A friend said to me this afternoon, 1 1 saw a great change in Salt Lake since I 
was there three years ago. The place is free; the people no longer speak in whispers. 
Three years ago it was unsafe to speak aloud in Salt Lake City about Mormonism, and 
you were warned to be cautious.' " 



SOME CHURCH-INSPIRED MURDERS 



45i 



consisting of six men, started east from San Francisco in May, 
1857, and, falling in with a Mormon train, joined them for protec- 
tion against the Indians. When they got to a safer neighborhood, 
the Californians pushed on ahead. Arriving in Kayesville, twenty- 
five miles north of Salt Lake City, they were at once arrested as 
federal spies, and their animals (they had an outfit worth in all 
about $25,000) were put into the public corral. When their Mor- 
mon fellow-travellers arrived, they scouted the idea that the men 
even knew of an impending " war," and the party were told that 
they would be sent out of the territory. But before they started, 
a council, held at the call of a Bishop in Salt Lake City, decided 
on their death. 

Four of the party were attacked in camp by their escort while 
asleep ; two were killed at once, and two who escaped temporarily 
were shot while, as they supposed, being escorted back to Salt 
Lake City. The two others were attacked by O. P. Rockwell and 
some associates near the city ; one was killed outright, and the 
other escaped, wounded, and was shot the next day while under 
the escort of "Bill" Hickman, and, according to the latter, by 
Young's order. 1 

A story of the escape of one man from the valley, notwith- 
standing elaborate plans to prevent his doing so, has been pre- 
served, not in the testimony of repentant participants in his 
persecution, but in his own words. 2 

Frederick Loba was a prosperous resident of Lausanne, Swit- 
zerland, where for some years he had been introducing a new 
principle in gas manufacture, when, in 1853, some friends called 
his attention to the Mormons' professions and promises. Loba 
was induced to believe that all mankind who did not gather in 
Great Salt Lake Valley would be given over to destruction, and 
that, not only would his soul be saved by moving there, but that 
his business opportunities would be greatly advanced. Accord- 
ingly he gave up the direction of the gas works at Lausanne, and 
reached St. Louis in December, 1853, with about $8000 worth of 
property. There he was made temporary president of a Mormon 
church, and there he got his first bad impression of the Mormon 
brotherhood. 

1 "Brigham's Destroying Angel," p. 128. 

2 Leavenworth, Kansas, letter to New York Times, published May 1, 1858. 



452 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



On the way to Utah his wife died of cholera, leaving six chil- 
dren, from six to twelve years old. Welcomed as all men with 
property were, he was made Professor of Chemistry in the Uni- 
versity, and soon learned many of the church secrets. "These," 
to quote his own words, " opened my eyes at once, and I saw at a 
glance the terrible position in which I was placed. I now found 
myself in the midst of a wicked and degraded people, shut up in 
the midst of the mountains, with a large family, and deprived of 
all resources with which to extricate myself. The conviction had 
been forced upon my mind that Brigham himself was at the bottom 
of all the clandestine assassinations, plundering of trains, and rob- 
bing of mails." The manner, too, in which polygamy was prac- 
tised aroused his intense disgust. 

He married as his second wife an English woman, and his 
family relations were pleasant ; but the church officers were dis- 
trustful of him. He was again and again urged to marry more 
wives, being assured that with less than three he could not rise 
to a high place in the church. " This neglect on my part," he 
explained, " and certain remarks that I made with respect to 
Brigham's friends, determined the prophet to order my private 
execution, as I am able to prove by honest and competent wit- 
nesses." Loba adopted every precaution for his own safety, night 
and day. Then came the news of the Parrish murders, and there 
was so much alarm among the people that there was talk of the 
departure of a great many of the dissatisfied. To check this, 
when the plain threats made in the Tabernacle did not avail, 
Young had a band of four hundred organized under the name 
of "Wolf Hunters" (borrowed from their old Hancock County 
neighbors), whose duty it was to see that "the wolves" did not 
stray abroad. 

Loba now communicated his fears to his wife, and found that 
she also realized the danger of their position, and was ready to 
advise the risk of flight. The plan, as finally decided on, was that 
they two should start alone on April I, leaving the children in 
care of the wife's mother and brother, the latter a recent comer 
not yet initiated in the church mysteries. 

At ten o'clock on the appointed night Loba and his wife — 
the latter dressed in men's clothes — stole out of their house. 
Their outfit consisted of one blanket, twelve pounds of crackers, 



SOME CHURCH-INSPIRED MURDERS 



453 



a little tea and sugar, a double-barrelled gun, a sword, and a com- 
pass. They were without horses, and their route compelled them 
to travel the main road for twenty-five miles before they reached 
the mountains, amid which they hoped to baffle pursuit. They 
were fortunate enough to gain the mountains without detention. 
There they laid their course, not with a view to taking the easiest 
or most direct route, but one so far up the mountain sides that 
pursuit by horsemen would be impossible. This entailed great 
suffering. The nights were so cold that sometimes they feared 
to sleep. Add to this the necessity of wading through creeks in 
ice-cold water, and it is easy to understand that Loba had difficulty 
to prevent his companion from yielding to despair. 

Their objective point was Greene River (170 miles from Salt 
Lake City by road, but probably almost 300 by the route taken), 
where they expected to find Indians on whose mercy they would 
throw themselves. Two days before that river was reached they 
ate the last of their food, and they kept from freezing at night by 
getting some sage wood from underneath the snow, and using 
Loba's pocket journal for kindling. Mrs. Loba had to be carried 
the whole of the last six miles, but this effort brought them to 
a camp of Snake Indians, among whom were some Canadian 
traders, and there they received a kindly welcome. News of their 
escape reached Salt Lake City, and Surveyor General Burr sent 
them the necessary supplies and a guide to conduct them to Fort 
Laramie, where, a month later, all the rest of the family joined 
them, in good health, but entirely destitute. 

They then learned that, as soon as their flight was discovered, 
the church authorities sent out horsemen in every direction to 
intercept them, but their route over the mountains proved their 
preservation. 1 

1 Referring to the frequent Mormon declarations that there were fewer deeds of vio- 
lence in Utah than in other pioneer settlements of equal population, the Salt Lake 
Tribune of January 25, 1876, said: "It is estimated that no less than 600 murders 
have been committed by the Mormons, in nearly every case at the instigation of their 
priestly leaders, during the occupation of the territory. Giving a mean average of 
50,000 persons professing that faith in Utah, we have a murder committed every year to 
every 2500 of population. The same ratio of crime extended to the population of the 
United States would give 16,000 murders every year." 

The Messenger, the organ of the Reorganized Church in Salt Lake City, said in 
November, 1875 ; "While laying the waste pipes in front of the residence of Brigham 
Young recently the skeleton of a man — a white man — was dug up. A similar discov- 
ery was made last winter in digging a cellar in this city. What can have been the neces- 
sity of these secret burials, without coffins, in such places?" 



CHAPTER IX 



BLOOD ATONEMENT 

As early as 1853 intimations of the doctrine that an offending 
member might be put out of the way were given from the Taber- 
nacle pulpit. Orson Hyde, on April 9 of that year, spoke, in the 
form of a parable, of the fate of a wolf that a shepherd discovered 
in his flock of sheep, saying that, if let alone, he would go off and 
tell the other wolves, and they would come in ; " whereas, if the 
first should meet with his just deserts, he could not go back and 
tell the rest of his hungry tribe to come and feast themselves on 
the flock. If you say the priesthood, or authorities of the church 
here, are the shepherd, and the church is the flock, you can make 
your own application of this figure." 

In September, 1856, there was a notable service in the bowery 
in Salt Lake City at which several addresses were made. Heber 
C. Kimball urged repentance, and told the people that Brigham 
Young's word was "the word of God to this people." Then 
Jedediah M. Grant first gave open utterance to a doctrine that has 
given the Saints, in late years, much trouble to explain, and the 
carrying out of which in Brigham Young's days has required many 
a Mormon denial. This is what has been called in Utah the doc- 
trine of " blood atonement," and what in reality was the doctrine 
of human sacrifice. 

Grant declared that some persons who had received the priest- 
hood committed adultery and other abominations, M get drunk, and 
wallow in the mire and filth." "I say," he continued, "there 
are men and women that I would advise to go to the President 
immediately, and ask him to appoint a committee to attend to 
their case ; and then let a place be selected, and let that committee 
shed their blood. We have those amongst us that are full of all 
manner of abominations ; those who need to have their blood shed, 

454 



BLOOD ATONEMENT 



455 



for water will not do ; their sins are too deep for that." He 
explained that he was only preaching the doctrine of St. Paul, 
and continued : " I would ask how many covenant breakers there 
are in this city and in this kingdom. I believe that there are a 
great many ; and if they are covenant breakers, we need a place 
designated where we can shed their blood. ... If any of you 
ask, Do I mean you, I answer yes. If any woman asks, Do I 
mean her, I answer yes. . . . We have been trying long enough 
with these people, and I go in for letting the sword of the 
Almighty be unsheathed, not only in word, but in deed." 2 

Brigham Young, who followed Grant, said that he would 
explain how judgment would be "laid to the line." " There are 
sins," he explained, "that men commit, for which they cannot 
receive forgiveness in this world nor in that which is to come ; 
and, if they had their eyes open to see their true condition, they 
would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilt upon the ground, 
that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven for their sins. . . 
I know, when you hear my brethren telling about cutting people 

1 Elder C. W. Penrose made an explanation of the view taken by the church at that 
time, in an address in Salt Lake City on October 12, 1884, that was published in a 
pamphlet entitled " Blood Atonement as taught by Leading Elders." This was 
deemed necessary to meet the criticisms of this doctrine. He pleaded misrepresentation 
of the Saints' position, and defined it as resting on Christ's atonement, and on the belief 
that that atonement would suffice only for those who have fellowship with Him. He 
quoted St. Paul as authority for the necessity of blood shedding (Hebrews ix. 22), and 
Matthew xii. 31, 32, and Hebrews x. 26, to show that there are sins, like blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost, which will not be forgiven through the shedding of Christ's 
blood. He also quoted I John v. 16 as showing that the apostle and Brigham Young were 
in agreement concerning "sins unto death," just as Young and the apostle agreed about 
delivering men unto Satan that their spirits might be saved through the destruction of 
their flesh (1 Corinthians v. 5). Having justified the teaching to his satisfaction, he pro- 
ceeded to challenge proof that any one had ever paid the penalty, coupling with this a 
denial of the existence of Danites. 

Elder Hyde, in his " Mormonism," says (p. 179) : " There are several men now living 
in LTtah whose lives are forfeited by Mormon law, but spared for a little time by Mormon 
policy. They are certain to be killed, and they know it. They are only allowed to live 
while they add weight and influence to Mormonism, and, although abundant opportu- 
nities are given them for escape, they prefer to remain. So strongly are they infatuated 
with their religion that they think their salvation depends on their continued obedience, 
and their 'blood being shed by the servants of God.' Adultery is punished by death, 
and it is taught, unless the adulterer's blood be shed, he can have no remission for this 
sin. Believing this firmly, there are men who have confessed this crime to Brigham, and 
asked him to have them killed. Their superstitious fears make life a burden to them, 
and they would commit suicide were not that also a crime." 

2 Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, pp. 49, 50. 



456 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



off from the earth, that you consider it a strong doctrine ; but it is 
to save them, not to destroy them." 

That these were not the mere expressions of a sudden impulse 
is shown by the fact that Young expounded this doctrine at even 
greater length a year later. Explaining what Christ meant by 
loving our neighbors as ourselves, he said : " Will you love your 
brothers and sisters likewise when they have committed a sin that 
cannot be atoned for without the shedding of blood ? Will you 
love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood ? That is 
what Jesus Christ meant. ... I have seen scores and hundreds 
of people for whom there would have been a chance (in the last res- 
urrection there will be) if their lives had been taken, and their 
blood spilled on the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty, 
but who are now angels to the devil." 1 

Stenhouse relates, as one of the " few notable cases that have 
properly illustrated the blood atonement doctrine," that one of the 
wives of an elder who was sent on a mission broke her marriage 
vows during his absence. On his return, during the height of the 
" Reformation," she was told that " she could not reach the circle 
of the gods and goddesses unless her blood was shed," and she 
consented to accept the punishment. Seating herself, therefore, 
on her husband's knee, she gave him a last kiss, and he then drew 
a knife across her throat. " That kind and loving husband still 
lives near Salt Lake City (1874), and preaches occasionally with 
great zeal." 2 

John D. Lee, who says that this doctrine was "justified by all 
the people," gives full particulars of another instance. Among 
the Danish converts in Utah was Rosmos Anderson, whose wife 
had been a widow with a grown daughter. Anderson desired to 
marry his step-daughter also, and she was quite willing ; but 
a member of the Bishop's council wanted the girl for his wife, 
and he was influential enough to prevent Anderson from getting 
the necessary consent from the head of the church. Knowing the 
professed horror of the church toward the crime of adultery, 
Anderson and the young woman, at one of the meetings during 
the " Reformation," confessed their guilt of that crime, thinking 
that in this way they would secure permission to marry. But, 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, pp. 219, 220. 

2 " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 470. 



BLOOD ATONEMENT 



457 



while they were admitted to rebaptism on their confession, the cov- 
eted permit was not issued, and they were notified that to offend 
again would be to incur death. Such a charge was very soon laid 
against Anderson (not against the girl), and the same council, with- 
out hearing him, decided that he must die. Anderson was so firm 
in the Mormon faith that he made no remonstrance, simply asking 
half a dav for preparation. His wife provided clean clothes for 
the sacrifice, and his executioners dug his grave. At midnight 
they called for him, and, taking him to the place, allowed him to 
kneel by the grave and pray. Then they cut his throat, "and held 
him so that his blood ran into the grave." His wife, obeying 
instructions, announced that he had gone to California. 1 

As an illustration of the opportunity which these times gave 
a polygamous priesthood to indulge their tastes, may be told the 
story of " the affair at San Pete." Bishop Warren Snow of 
Manti, San Pete County, although the husband of several wives, 
desired to add to his list a good-looking young woman in that town. 
When he proposed to her, she declined the honor, informing him 
that she was engaged to a younger man. The Bishop argued with 
her on the ground of her duty, offering to have her lover sent on a 
mission, but in vain. When even the girl's parents failed to gain 
her consent, Snow directed the local church authorities to com- 
mand the young man to give her up. Finding him equally obsti- 
nate, he was one evening summoned to attend a meeting where 
only trusted members were present. Suddenly the lights were 
put out, he was beaten and tied to a bench, and Bishop Snow him- 
self castrated him with a bowie knife. In this condition he was 
left to crawl to some haystacks, where he lay until discovered. 
"The young man regained his health," says Lee, "but has been 
an idiot or quiet lunatic ever since, and is well known by hundreds 
of Mormons or Gentiles in Utah." 2 And the Bishop married the 
girl. Lee gives Young credit for being very " mad " when he 
learned of this incident, but the Bishop was not even deposed. 3 

1 " Mormonism Unveiled,"' p. 282. 2 Ibid., p. 285. 

3 Stenhouse quotes the following as showing that the San Pete outrage was scarcely 
concealed by the Mormon authorities : u I was at a Sunday meeting, in the spring of 
1857, in Provo, when the news of the San Pete incident was referred to by the presiding 
Bishop, Blackburn. Some men in Provo had rebelled against authority in some trivial 
matter, and Blackburn shouted in his Sunday meeting — a mixed congregation of all 
ages and both sexes : 1 1 want the people of Provo to understand that the boys in Provo 
can use the knife as well as the boys in San Pete. Boys, get your knives ready.' " — 
" Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 302. 



CHAPTER X 



THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT —JUDGE BROCCHUS'S 
EXPERIENCE 

In March, 185 1, the two houses of the legislature of Deseret, 
sitting together, adopted resolutions "cheerfully and cordially" 
accepting the law providing a territorial government for Utah, and 
tendering Union Square in Salt Lake City as a site for the gov- 
ernment buildings. The first territorial election was held on 
August 4, and the legislative assembly then elected held its first 
meeting on September 22. An act was at once passed continuing 
in force the laws passed by the legislature of Deseret (an unau- 
thorized body) not in conflict with the territorial law, and locating 
the capital in the Pauvan Valley, where the town was afterward 
named Fillmore 1 and the county Millard, in honor of the President. 

The federal law, establishing the territory, provided that the 
governor, secretary, chief justice and two associate justices of the 
Supreme Court, the attorney general, or state's attorney, and mar- 
shal should be appointed by the President of the United States. 
President Fillmore on September 28, 1850, filled these places as 
follows : governor, Brigham Young ; secretary, B. D. Harris of 
Vermont ; chief justice, Joseph Buffington of Pennsylvania ; asso- 
ciate justices, Perry E. Brocchus and Zerubbabel Snow; attorney 
general, Seth M. Blair of Utah; marshal, J. L. Heywood of Utah, 
Young, Snow, Blair, and Heywood being Mormons. L. G. Brande- 
bury was later appointed chief justice, Mr. Buffington declining 
that office. 

The selection of Brigham Young as governor made him, in 
addition to his church offices, ex-officio commander-in-chief of 
the militia and superintendent of Indian affairs, the latter giving 

1 Only one session of the legislature was held at Fillmore (December, 1855). The 
lawmakers afterward met there, but only to adjourn to Salt Lake City. 

458 



THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT 



459 



him a salary of $1000 a year in addition to his salary of $1500 as 
governor. Had the character of the Mormon church government 
been understood by President Fillmore, it does not seem possible 
that he would, by Young's appointment, have so completely united 
the civil and religious authority of the territory in one man ; or, 
if he had had any comprehension of Young's personal character- 
istics, it is fair to conclude that the appointment would not have 
been made. 

The voice which the President listened to in the matter was 
that of that adroit Mormon agent, Colonel Thomas L. Kane. 
Kane's part in the business came out after these appointments 
were announced, and after the Bicffalo (New York) Courier had 
printed a communication attacking Young's character on the 
ground of his record both in Illinois and Utah. President Fill- 
more sent these charges to Kane (on July 4, 185 1) with a letter 
in which he said, " You will recollect that I relied much upon 
you for the moral character of Mr. Young," and asking him to 
" truly state whether these charges against the moral character of 
Governor Young are true." Kane sent two letters in reply, dated 
July 11. In a short open one he said: "I reiterate without re- 
serve the statement of his excellent capacity, energy, and integrity, 
which I made you prior to the appointment. I am willing to say 
that I volunteered to communicate to you the facts by which I was 
convinced of his patriotism and devotion to the Union. I made 
no qualification when I assured you of his irreproachable moral 
character, because I was able to speak of this from my own inti- 
mate personal knowledge." 

The second letter, marked " personal," went into these matters 
much more in detail. It declared that the tax levied by Young on 
non-Mormons who sold goods in Salt Lake City was a liquor tax, 
creditable to Morrnon temperance principles. Had the President 
consulted the report of the debate on Babbitt's admission as a 
Delegate, he would have discovered that this was falsehood num- 
ber one. The charges against Young while in Illinois, including 
counterfeiting, Kane swept aside as " a mere rehash of old libels," 
and he cited the Battalion as an illustration of Mormon patriotism. 
The extent to which he could go in falsifying in Young's behalf 
is illustrated, however, most pointedly in what he had to say 
regarding the charge of polygamy : " The remaining charge con- 



460 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



nects itself with that unmixed outrage, the spiritual wife story, 
which was fastened on the Mormons by a poor ribald scamp 
whom, though the sole surviving brother and representative of 
their Jo. Smith, they were literally forced to excommunicate 
for licentiousness, and who therefore revenged himself by editing 
confessions and disclosures of savor to please the public that pe- 
ruses novels in yellow paper covers." 1 In regard to William 
Smith, the fact was that he opposed polygamy both before and 
after his expulsion from the church. Kane's stay among the 
Mormons on the Missouri must have acquainted him with the 
practically open practice of polygamy at that time. His entire 
correspondence with Fillmore stamps him as a man whose word 
could be accepted on no subject. It would have been well if 
President Buchanan had availed himself of the existence of these 
letters. Fillmore stated in later years that at that time neither he 
nor the Senate knew that polygamy was an accepted Mormon 
doctrine. 

Young took the oath of office as governor in February, 185 1. 
The non-Mormon federal officers arrived in June and July follow- 
ing, and with them came Babbitt, bringing $20,000 which had 
been appropriated by Congress for a state-house, and J. M. Bern- 
hisel, the first territorial Delegate to Congress, with a library pur- 
chased by him in the East for which Congress had provided. The 
arrival of the Gentile officers gave a speedy opportunity to test the 
temper of the church in regard to any interference with, or even 
discussion of, their " peculiar " institutions or Young's authority. 

Their first welcome was cordial, with balls and dinners at the 
Bath House at the Hot Springs at which, for their special benefit, 
says a local historian, was served " champagne wine from the gro- 
cery," with home-brewed porter and ale for the rest. When Judge 
Brocchus reached Salt Lake City, his two non-Mormon associates 
had been there long enough to form an opinion of the Mormon 
population and of the aims of the leading church officers. They 
soon concluded that " no man else could govern them against Brig- 
ham Young's influence, without a military force," 2 and they 
heard many expressions, public and private, indicating the con- 

1 For correspondence in full, see Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, pp. 341-344. 

2 Report of the three officers to President Fillmore, Ex. Doc. No. 25, 1st Session, 
32d Congress. 



THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT 



461 



tempt in which the federal government was held. The anniver- 
sary of the arrival of the pioneers, July 24, was always celebrated 
with much ceremony, and that year the principal addresses were 
made by "General" D. H. Wells and Brigham Young. Some of 
the new officers occupied seats on the platform. Wells attacked 
the government for " requiring " the Battalion to enlist. Young 
paid especial attention to President Taylor, who had recently died, 
and whose course toward the Mormons did not please them, clos- 
ing this part of his remarks with the declaration, " but Zachary 
Taylor is dead and in hell, and I am glad of it," adding, " and I 
prophesy in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the priest- 
hood that's upon me, that any President of the United States who 
lifts his ringer against this people, shall die an untimely death, and 
go to hell.'' 

Judge Brocchus had been commissioned by the Washington 
Monument Association to ask the people of the territory for a 
block of stone for that structure, and, on signifying a desire to 
make known his commission, he was invited to do so at the Gen- 
eral Conference to be held on September 7 and 8. The judge 
thought that, with the life of Washington as a text, he could read 
these people a lesson on their duty toward the government, and 
could correct some of the impressions under which they rested. 
The idea itself only showed how little he understood anything per- 
taining to Mormonism. 

There was no newspaper in Salt Lake City in that time, and 
for a report of the judge's address and of Brigham Young's reply, 
we must rely on the report of the three federal officers to Presi- 
dent Fillmore, on a letter from Judge Brocchus printed in the East, 
and on three letters on the subject addressed to the New York 
Herald (one of which that journal printed, and all of which the 
author published in a pamphlet entitled " The Truth for the Mor- 
mons") by J. M. Grant, first mayor of Salt Lake City, major 
general of the Legion, and Speaker of the house in the Deseret 
legislature. 

Judge Brocchus spoke for two hours. He began with expres- 
sions of sympathy for the sufferings of the Mormons in Missouri 
and Illinois, and then referred to the unfriendliness of the people 
toward the federal government, pointing out what he considered 
its injustice, and alluding pointedly to Brigham Young's remarks 



462 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



about President Taylor. He defended the President's memory, 
and totd his audience that, "if they could not offer a block of 
marble for the Washington Monument in a feeling of full fellow- 
ship with the people of the United States, as brethren and fellow- 
citizens, they had better not offer it at all, but leave it unquarried 
in the bosom of its native mountain." The officers' report to Presi- 
dent Fillmore says that the address "was entirely free from any 
allusions, even the most remote, to the peculiar religion of the 
community, or to any of their domestic or social customs." Even 
if the Mormons had so construed it, the rebuke of their lack of 
patriotism would have aroused their resentment, and Bernhisel, in 
a letter to President Fillmore, characterized it as " a wanton insult." 

But the judge did make, according; to other reports, what was 
construed as an uncomplimentary reference to polygamy, and this 
stirred the church into a tumult of anger and indignation. Accord- 
ing to Mormon accounts, 1 the judge, addressing the ladies, said : 
" I have a commission from the Washington Monument Associa- 
tion, to ask of you a block of marble, as a test of your citizenship 
and loyalty to the government of the United States. But in order 
to do it acceptably you must become virtuous, and teach your 
daughters to become virtuous, or your offering had better remain 
in the bosom of your native mountains." 

Mild as this language may seem, no Mormon audience, since 
the marrying of more wives than one had been sanctioned by the 
church, had ever listened to anything like it. To permit even this 
interference with their "religious belief" was entirely foreign to 
Young's purpose, and he took the floor in a towering rage to reply. 
" Are you a judge," he asked, "and can't even talk like a lawyer 
or a politician?" George Washington was first in war, but he 
was first in peace, too, and Young could handle a sword as well as 
Washington. "But you [addressing the judge] standing there, 
white and shaking now at the howls which you have stirred up 
yourself — you are a coward. . . . Old General Taylor, what was 
he ? 2 A mere soldier with regular army buttons on ; no better 

1 The report of what follows, including Young's address, is taken from Grant's 
pamphlet. 

2 In a discourse on June 19, 1853, Young said that he never heard of his alleged 
expression about General Taylor until Judge Brocchus made use of it, but he added : 
" When he made the statement there, I surely bore testimony to the truth of it. But 
until then I do not know that it ever came into my mind whether Taylor was in hell or 



THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT 



463 



to go at the head of brave troops than a dozen I could pick out 
between here and Laramie." He concluded thus : 

" What you have been afraid to intimate about our morals I will not stoop to 
notice, except to make my particular personal request to every brother and hus- 
band present not to give you back what such impudence deserves. You talk of 
things 'you have on hearsay ' since your coming among us. I'll talk of hearsay 
then — the hearsay that you are discontented, and will go home, because we can- 
not make it worth your while to stay. What it would satisfy you to get out of us 
I think it would be hard to tell ; but I am sure that it is more than you'll get. If 
you or any one else is such a baby-calf, we must sugar your soap to coax you to 
wash yourself of Saturday nights. Go home to your mammy straight away, and 
the sooner the better." 

This was the language addressed by the governor of the terri- 
tory and the head of the church, to one of the Supreme Court 
judges appointed by the President of the United States ! 

Young alluded to his reference to the judge's personal safety 
in a discourse on June 19, 1853, in which, speaking of the judge's 
remarks, he said : " They [the Mormons] bore the insult like saints 
of God. It is true, as it was said in the report of these affairs, if 
I had crooked my little finger, he would have been used up, but I 
did not bend it. If I had, the sisters alone felt indignant enough 
to have chopped him in pieces." A little later, in the same dis- 
course, he added : " Every man that comes to impose on this peo- 
ple, no matter by whom they are sent, or who they are that are 
sent, lay the axe at the root of the tree to kill themselves. I will 
do as I said I would last conference. Apostates, or men who 
never made any profession of religion, had better be careful how 
they come here, lest I should bend my little finger." 1 

If the records of the Mormon church had included acts as well 
as words, how many times would we find that Young's little finger 
was bent to a purpose ? 

Bold as he was, Young seems to have felt that he had gone 
too far in his abuse of Judge Brocchus, and on September 19 he 
addressed a note to him, inviting him to attend a public meeting 
in the bowery the next Sunday morning, " to explain, satisfy, or 
apologize to the satisfaction of the ladies who heard your address 
on the 8th," a postscript assuring the judge that "no gentleman 

not, any more than it did that any other wicked man was there," etc. — Journal of Dis- 
courses, Vol. I, p. 185. 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 187. 



464 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



will be permitted to make any reply." The judge in polite terms 
declined this offer, saying that he had been, at the proper time, 
denied a chance to explain, " at the peril of having my hair pulled 
or my throat cut." He added that his speech was deliberately 
prepared, that his sole design was "to vindicate the government 
of the United States from those feelings of prejudice and that 
spirit of defection which seemed to pervade the public sentiment," 
and that he had had no intention to offer insult or disrespect to 
his audience. This called out, the next day, a very long reply 
from Young, of which the following is a paragraph : — 

"With a war of words on party politics, factions, religious schisms, current 
controversy of creeds, policy of clans or state clipper cliques, I have nothing to 
do ; but when the eternal principles of truth are falsified, and light is turned into 
darkness by mystification of language or a false delineation of facts, so that the 
just indignation of the true, virtuous, upright citizens of the commonwealth is 
aroused into vigilance for the dear-bought liberties of themselves and fathers, and 
that spirit of intolerance and persecution which has driven this people time and 
time again from their peaceful homes, manifests itself in the flippancy of rhetoric 
for female insult and desecration, it is time that I forbear to hold my peace, lest 
the thundering anathemas of nations, born and unborn, should rest upon my 
head, when the marrow of my bones shall be illy prepared to sustain the threat- 
ened blow. 1 ' 1 

Judge Brocchus wrote to a friend in the East, on September 
20 : " How it will end, I do not know. I have just learned that I 
have been denounced, together with the government and officers, 
in the bowery again to-day by Governor Young. I hope I shall 
get off safely. God only knows. I am in the power of a desper- 
ate and murderous sect." 

The non-Mormon federal officers now announced their deter- 
mination to abandon their places and return to the East. Young 
foresaw that so radical a course would give his conduct a wide 
advertisement, and attract to him an unpleasant notoriety. He, 
therefore, called on the offended judges personally, and urged 
them to remain. 2 Being assured that they would not reconsider 
their determination, and that Secretary Harris would take with 
him the $24,000 appropriated for the pay and mileage of the ter- 
ritorial legislature, Young, on September 18, issued a proclama- 
tion declaring the result of the election of August 4, which he had 

1 For correspondence in full, see Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," pp. 86-91. 

2 Young to the President, House Doc. No. 25, 1st Session, 32d Congress. 



THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT 



465 



neglected to do, and convening the legislature in session on Sep- 
tember 22. " So solicitous was the governor that the secretary 
and other [non-Mormon] officers should be kept in ignorance of 
this step," says the report of the latter to President Fillmore, " that 
on the 19th, two days after the date [of a personal notice sent to 
members], he most positively and emphatically denied, as com- 
municated to the secretary, that any such notice had been issued." 

As soon as the legislature met, it passed resolutions directing 
the United States marshal to take possession of all papers and 
property (including money) in the hands of Secretary Harris, and 
to arrest him and lock him up if he offered any resistance. On 
receipt of a copy of this resolution, Secretary Harris sent a reply, 
giving several reasons for refusing to hand over the money appro- 
priated for the legislature, among them the failure of the governor 
to have a census taken before the election, as provided by the ter- 
ritorial act, the defective character of the governor's proclamation 
ordering the election, allowing aliens to vote, and the governor's 
failure to declare the result of the election, his delayed proclama- 
tion being pronounced " worthless for all legal purposes." 

On September 28 the three non-Mormon officers took their 
departure, carrying with them to Washington the disputed money, 
which was turned over to the proper officer. 1 

All the correspondence concerning the failure of this first 
attempt to establish non-Mormon federal officers in Utah was 
given to Congress in a message from President Fillmore, dated 
January 9, 1852. The returned officers made a report which set 
forth the autocratic attitude of the Mormon church, the open 
practice of polygamy, 2 and the non-enforcement of the laws, not 
even murderers being punished. Of one of the allegations of 

1 Tullidge, in his " History of Salt Lake City," says : " Under the censure of the great 
statesman, Daniel Webster, and with ex- Vice President Dallas and Colonel Kane using 
their potent influence against them, and also Stephen A. Douglas, Brandebury, Broc- 
chus, and Harris were forced to retire." As these officers left the territory of their own 
accord, and contrary to Brigham Young's urgent protest, this statement only furnishes 
another instance of the Mormon plan to attack the reputation of any one whom they 
could not control. The three officers were criticised by some Eastern newspapers for 
leaving their post through fear of bodily injury, but Congress voted to pay their salaries. 

2 J. D. Grant, following the example of Colonel Kane, had the affrontery to say of 
the charge of polygamy, in one of his letters to the New York Herald: " I pronounce 
it false. . . . Suppose I should admit it at once? Whose business is it? Does the con- 
stitution forbid it ? " 

2 H 



466 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



murder set forth, — that a man from Ithaca, New York, named 
James Munroe, was murdered on his way to Salt Lake City by a 
member of the church, his body brought to the city and buried 
without an inquest, the murderer walking the streets undisturbed, — 
H. H. Bancroft says, " There is no proof of this statement." 1 On 
the contrary, Mayor Grant in his " Truth for the Mormons " ac- 
knowledges it, and gives the details of the murder, justifying it on 
the ground of provocation, alleging that while Egan, the murderer, 
was absent in California, Munroe, " from his youth up a member 
of the church, Egan's friend too, therefore a traitor," seduced 
Egan's wife. 

Young, in a statement to the President, defended his acts and 
the acts of the territorial legislature, and attacked the character 
and motives of the federal officers. The legislature soon after 
petitioned President Fillmore to fill the vacancies by appointing 
men " who are, indeed, residents amongst us." 

1 " History of Utah," p. 460, note. 



CHAPTER XI 



MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS 

The next federal officers for Utah appointed by the President 
(in August, 1852) were Lazarus H. Reid of New York to be chief 
justice, Leonidas Shaver, associate justice, and B. G. Ferris, sec- 
retary. Neither of these officers incurred the Mormon wrath. 
Both of the judges died while in office, and the next chief justice 
was John F. Kinney, who had occupied a seat on the Iowa Supreme 
Bench, with W. W. Drummond of Illinois, and George P. Stiles, 
one of Joseph Smith's counsel at the time of the prophet's death, as 
associates. A. W. Babbitt received the appointment of secretary 
of the territory. 1 

The territorial legislature had continued to meet from time to 
time, Young having a seat of honor in front of the Speaker at each 
opening joint session, and presenting his message. The most impor- 
tant measure passed was an election law which practically gave 
the church authorities control of the ballot. It provided that each 
voter must hand his ballot, folded, to the judge of election, who 
must deposit it after numbering it, and after the clerk had recorded 
the name and number. This, of course, gave the church officers 
knowledge concerning the candidate for whom each man voted. 
Its purpose needs no explanation. 

In August, 1854, a force of some three hundred soldiers, under 
command of Lieutenant Colonel E. J. Steptoe of the United States 

1 Some years later Babbitt was killed. Mrs. Waite, in " The Mormon Prophet " 
(p. 34) says : " In the summer of 1862 Brigham was referring to this affair in a tea-table 
conversation at which Judge Waite and the writer of this were present. After making 
some remarks to impress upon the minds of those present the necessity of maintaining 
friendly relations between the federal officers and the authorities of the church, he used 
language substantially as follows : ' There is no need of any difficulty, and there need be 
none if the officers do their duty and mind their affairs. If they do not, if they under- 
take to interfere with affairs that do not concern them, I will not be far off. There was 
Almon W. Babbitt. He undertook to quarrel with me, but soon afterward was killed by 
Indians.' " 

467 



468 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



army, on their way to the Pacific coast, arrived in Salt Lake City 
and passed the succeeding winter there. Young's term as governor 
was about to expire, and the appointment of his successor rested 
with President Pierce. Public opinion in the East had become more 
outspoken against the Mormons since the resignation of the first 
federal officers sent to the territory, the "revelation" concerning 
polygamy having been publicly avowed meanwhile, and there was 
an expressed feeling that a non-Mormon should be governor. Ac- 
cordingly, President Pierce, in December, 1854, offered the govern- 
orship to Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe. 

Brigham Young, just before and after this period, openly de- 
clared that he would not surrender the actual government of the 
territory to any man. In a discourse in the Tabernacle, on June 19, 
1853, in which he reviewed the events of 185 1, he said, "We have 
got a territorial government, and I am and will be governor, and no 
power can hinder it, until the Lord Almighty says, ' Brigham, you 
need not be governor any longer.' " 1 In a defiant discourse in the 
Tabernacle, on February 18, 1855, Young again stated his position 
on this subject : "For a man to come here [as governor] and infringe 
upon my individual rights and privileges, and upon those of my 
brethren, will never meet my sanction, and I will scourge such a 
one until he leaves. I am after him." Defining his position fur- 
ther, and the independence of his people, he said : " Come on with 
your knives, your swords, and your faggots of fire, and destroy the 
whole of us rather than we will forsake our religion. Whether the 
doctrine of plurality of wives is true or false is none of your busi- 
ness. We have as good a right to adopt tenets in our religion as 
the Church of England, or the Methodists, or the Baptists, or any 
other denomination have to theirs." 2 

Having thus defied the federal appointing power, the nomina- 
tion of Colonel Steptoe as Young's successor might have been ex- 
pected to cause an outbreak ; but the Mormon leaders were always 
diplomatic — at least, when Young did not lose his temper. The 
outcome of this appointment was its declination by Steptoe, a peti- 
tion to President Pierce for Young's reappointment signed by Step- 
toe himself and all the federal officers in the territory, and the 
granting of the request of these petitioners. 

Mrs. C. B. Waite, wife of Associate Justice C. B. Waite, one of 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 187. 2 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 187-188. 



MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS 469 

Lincoln's appointees, gives a circumstantial account of the manner 
in which Colonel Steptoe was influenced to decline the nomination 
and sign the petition in favor of Young. 1 Two women, whose 
beauty then attracted the attention of Salt Lake City society, were 
a relative by marriage of Brigham Young and an actress in the 
church theatre. The federal army officers were favored with a 
good deal of their society. When Steptoe's appointment as gov- 
ernor was announced, Young called these women to his assistance. 
In conformity with the plan then suggested, Young one evening 
suddenly demanded admission to Colonel Steptoe's office, which 
was granted after considerable delay. Passing into the back room, 
he found the two women there, dressed in men's clothes and with 
their faces concealed by their hats. He sent the women home with 
a rebuke, and then described to Steptoe the danger he was in if the 
women's friends learned of the incident, and the disgrace which 
would follow its exposure. Steptoe's declination of the nomina- 
tion and his recommendation of Young soon followed. 

President Pierce's selection of judicial officers for Utah was not 
made with proper care, nor with due regard to the dignity of the 
places to be filled. Chief Justice Kinney took with him to Utah a 
large stock of goods which he sold at retail after his arrival there, 
and he also kept a boarding-house in Salt Lake City. With his 
" trade" dependent on Mormon customers, he had every object in 
cultivating their popularity. Known as a "Jack-Mormon " in Iowa, 
Mrs. Waite declared that his uniform course, to the time about 
which she wrote, had been " to aid and abet Brigham Young in his 
ambitious schemes," and that he was then "an open apologist and 
advocate of polygamy." Judge Drummond's course in Utah was 
in many respects scandalous. A former member of the bench in 
Illinois writes to me : " I remember that when Drummond's appoint- 
ment was announced there was considerable comment as to his lack 
of fitness for the place, and, after the troubles between him and the 
Mormon leaders got aired through the press, members of the bar 
from his part of the state said they did not blame the Mormons — 
that it was an imposition upon them to have sent him out there as 
a judge. I never heard his moral character discussed." If the Mor- 
mon leaders had shown any respect for the government at Wash- 
ington, or for the reputable men appointed to territorial offices, 

1 "The Mormon Prophet," p. 36, confirmed by Beadle's "Life in Utah," p. 171. 



470 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



more attention might be paid to their hostility manifested to certain 
individuals. 

A few of the leading questions at issue under the new territorial 
officers will illustrate the nature of the government with which they 
had to deal. The territorial legislature had passed acts denning 
the powers and duties of the territorial courts. These acts pro- 
vided that the district courts should have original jurisdiction, both 
civil and criminal, wherever not otherwise provided by law. Chap- 
ter 64 (approved January 14, 1864) provided as follows : " All ques- 
tions of law, the meaning of writings other than law, and the 
admissibility of testimony shall be decided by the court ; and no 
laws or parts of laws shall be read, argued, cited, or adopted in any 
courts, during any trial, except those enacted by the governor and 
legislative assembly of this territory, and those passed by the Con- 
gress of the United States, when applicable ; and no report, deci- 
sion, or doings of any court shall be read, argued, cited, or adopted 
as precedent in any other trial." This obliterated at a stroke the 
whole body of the English common law. Another act provided 
that, by consent of the court and the parties, any person could be 
selected to act as judge in a particular case. As the district court 
judges were federal appointees, a judge of probate was provided 
for each county, to be elected by joint ballot of the legislature. 
These probate courts, besides the authority legitimately belonging 
to such tribunals, were given "power to exercise original jurisdic- 
tion, both civil and criminal, as well in chancery as at common 
law." Thus there were in the territory two kinds of courts, to one 
of which alone a non-Mormon could look for justice, and to the other 
of which every Mormon would appeal when he was not prevented. 

The act of Congress organizing the territory provided for the 
appointment of a marshal, approved by the President ; the terri- 
torial legislature on March 3, 1852, provided for another marshal 
to be elected by joint ballot, and for an attorney general. A non- 
Mormon had succeeded the original Mormon who was appointed 
as federal marshal, and he took the ground that he should have 
charge of all business pertaining to the marshal's office in the 
United States courts. Judge Stiles having issued writs to the 
federal marshal, the latter was not able to serve them, and 
the demand was openly made that only territorial law should 
be enforced in Utah. When the question of jurisdiction came 



MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS 471 



before the judge, three Mormon lawyers appeared in behalf of the 
Mormon claim, and one of them, James Ferguson, openly told the 
judge that, if he decided against him, they " would take him from 
the bench d — — d quick." Judge Stiles adjourned his court, and 
applied to Governor Young for assistance ; but got only the reply 
that "the boys had got their spunk up, and he would not inter- 
fere," and that, if Judge Stiles could not enforce the United 
States laws, the sooner he adjourned court the better. 1 All the 
records and papers of the United States court were kept in Judge 
Stiles's office. In his absence, Ferguson led a crowd to the office, 
seized and deposited in a safe belonging to Young the court papers, 
and, piling up the personal books and papers of the judge in an 
outhouse, set fire to them. The judge, supposing that the court 
papers were included in the bonfire, innocently made that state- 
ment in an affidavit submitted on his return to Washington in 
1857. 

Judge Drummond, reversing the policy of Chief Justice Kinney 
and Judge Shaver, announced, before the opening of the first ses- 
sion of his court, that he should ignore all proceedings of the terri- 
torial probate courts except such as pertained to legitimate 
probate business. This position was at once recognized as a 
challenge of the entire Mormon judicial system, 2 and steps were 
promptly taken to overthrow it. There are somewhat conflicting 
accounts of the method adopted. Mrs. Waite, in her " Mormon 
Prophet," Hickman, in his confessions, and Remy, in his "Jour- 
ney," have all described it with variations. All agree that a quarrel 
was brought about between the judge and a Jew, which led to the 
arrest of both of them. " During the prosecution of the case," 
says Mrs. Waite, "the judge gave some sort of a stipulation that 
he would not interfere any further with the probate courts." 

Judge Stiles left the territory in the spring of i857> and g ave 
the government an account of his treatment in the form of an affi- 
davit when he reached Washington. Judge Drummond held court 

1 This account is given in Mrs. Waite's "The Mormon Prophet." Tullidge omits 
the incident in his " History of Salt Lake City." 

2 A member of the legislature wrote to his brother in England, of Drummond : 
" He has brass to declare in open court that the Utah laws are founded in ignorance, 
and has attempted to set some of the most important ones aside, . . . and he will be 
able to appreciate the merits of a returned compliment some day." — Tullidge, "His- 
tory of Salt Lake City," p. 412. 



472 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



a short time for Judge Stiles in Carson County (now Nevada) 1 in 
the spring of 1857, an< ^ tnen returned to the East by way of Cali- 
fornia, not concealing his opinion of Mormon rule on the way, and 
giving the government a statement of the case in a letter resigning 
his judgeship. 

After the departure of the non-Mormon federal judges from 
Utah, the only non-Mormon officers left there were those belong- 
ing to the office of the surveyor general, and two Indian agents. 
Toward these officers the Mormons were as hostile as they had 
been toward the judges, and the latest information that the gov- 
ernment received about the disposition and intentions of the Mor- 
mons came from them. 

The Mormon view of their title to the land in Salt Lake Valley 
appeared in Young's declaration on his first Sunday there, that it 
was theirs and would be divided by the officers of the church. 2 
Tullidge, explaining this view in his history published in 1886, 
says that this was simply following out the social plan of a Zion 
which Smith attempted in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, under 
" revelation." He explains : " According to the primal law of 
colonization, recognized in all ages, it was their land if they could 
hold and possess it. They could have done this so far as the 
Mexican government was concerned, which government probably 
never would even have made the first step to overthrow the super- 
structure of these Mormon society builders. At that date, before 

1 The settlement of what is now Nevada was begun by both Mormons and non- 
Mormons in 1854, and, the latter being in the majority, the Utah legislature organized 
the entire western part of the territory as one county, called Carson, and Governor 
Young appointed Orson Hyde its probate judge. Many persons coming in after the 
settlement of California, as miners, farmers, or stock-raisers, the Mormons saw their 
majority in danger, and ordered the non-Mormons to leave. Both sides took up arms, 
and they camped in sight of each other for two weeks. The Mormons, learning that 
their opponents were to receive reinforcements from California, agreed on equal rights 
for all in that part of the territory; but when the legislature learned of this, it repealed 
the county act, recalled the judge, and left the district without any legal protection 
whatever. Thus matters remained until late in 1858, when a probate judge was quietly 
appointed for Carson Valley. After this an election was held, but although the non- 
Mormons won at the polls, the officers elected refused to qualify and enforce Mormon 
statutes. — Letter of Delegate-elect J. M. Crane of Nevada, "The Mormon Prophet," 
pp. 41-45. 

2 " They will not, however, without protest, buy the land, and hope that grants will 
be made to actual settlers or the state, sufficient to cover their improvements. If not, 
the state will be obliged to buy, and then confirm the titles already given." — Gunni- 
son, " The Mormons," 1852, p. 414. 



MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS 473 



this territory was ceded to the United States, Brigham Young, as 
the master builder of the colonies which were soon to spread 
throughout these valleys, could with absolute propriety give the 
above utterances on the land question." 1 

When the act organizing the territory was passed, very little of 
the Indian title to the land had been extinguished, and the Indians 
made bitter complaints of the seizure of their homes and hunting 
grounds, and the establishment of private rights to canons and 
ferries, by the people who professed so great a regard for the 
" Lamanites." Congress, in February, 1855, created the office of 
surveyor general of Utah and defined his duties. The presence 
of this officer was resented at once, and as soon as Surveyor Gen- 
eral David H. Burr arrived in Salt Lake City the church directed 
all its members to convey their lands to Young as trustee in trust 

for the church, " in consideration of the good will which have 

to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." Explaining 
this order in a discourse in the Tabernacle on March 1, 1857, 
H. C. Kimball said : " I do not compel you to do it ; the trustee in 
trust does not ; God does not. But He says that if you will do 
this and the other things which He has counselled for our good, 
do so and prove Him. . . , If you trifle with me when I tell you 
the truth, you will trifle with Brother Brigham, and if you trifle 
with him you will also trifle with angels and with God, and thus 
you will trifle yourselves down to hell." 2 

The Mormon policy toward the surveyors soon took practical 
shape. On August 30, 1856, Burr reported a nearly fatal assault 
on one of his deputies by three Danites. Deputy Surveyor Craig 
reported efforts of the Mormons to stir up the Indians against the 
surveyors, and quoted a suggestion of the Deseret News that the 
surveyors be prosecuted in the territorial court for trespass. In 
February, 1857, Burr reported a visit he had had from the clerk 
of the Supreme Court, the acting district attorney, and the terri- 
torial marshal, who told him plainly that the country was theirs. 

1 Captain Gunnison, who as lieutenant accompanied Stansbury's surveying party 
and printed a book giving his personal observations, was murdered in 1853 while survey- 
ing a railroad route at a camp on Sevier River. His party were surprised by a band of 
Pah Utes while at breakfast, and nine of them were killed. The charge was often made 
that this massacre was inspired by Mormons, but it has not been supported by direct 
evidence. 

2 Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, pp. 249, 252. 



474 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



They showed him a copy of a report that he had made to Wash- 
ington, charging Young with extensive depredations, warned him 
that he could not write to Washington without their knowledge, 
and ordered that such letter writing should stop. " The fact is," 
Burr added, " these people repudiate the authority of the United 
States in this country, and are in open rebellion against the gen- 
eral government. ... So strong have been my apprehensions of 
danger to the surveyors that I scarcely deemed it prudent to send 
any out. . . . We are by no means sure that we will be per- 
mitted to leave, for it is boldly asserted we would not get away 
alive." 1 He did escape early in the spring. 

The reports of the Indian agents to the commissioner at Washing- 
ton at this time were of the same character. Mormon trespasses 
on Indian land had caused more than one conflict with the savages, 
but, when there was a prospect of hostilities with the government, 
the Mormons took steps to secure Indian aid. In May, 1855, 
Indian Agent Hurt called the attention of the commissioner at 
Washington to the fact that the Mormons at their recent Confer- 
ence had appointed a large number of missionaries to preach 
among the " Lamanites " ; that these missionaries were " a. class 
of lawless young men," and, as their influence was likely to.be in 
favor of hostilities with the whites, he suggested that all Indian 
officers receive warning on the subject. Hurt was added to the 
list of fugitive federal officers from Utah, deeming it necessary to 
flee when news came of the approach of the troops in the fall of 
1857. His escape was quite dramatic, some of his Indian friends 
assisting him. They reached General Johnston's camp about 
the middle of October, after suffering greatly from hunger and 
cold. 

The Mormon leaders could scarcely fail to realize that a point 
must be reached when the federal government would assert its 
authority in Utah territory, but they deemed a conflict with the 
government of less serious moment than a surrender which would 
curtail their own civil and criminal jurisdiction, and bring their doc- 
trine of polygamy within reach of the law. A specimen of the 
unbridled utterances of these leaders in those days will be found 
in a discourse by Mayor Grant in the Tabernacle, on March 2, 
1856: — 

1 For text of reports, see House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session, 35th Congress. 



MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS 



475 



*• Who is afraid to die ? None but the wicked. If they want to send troops 
here, let them come to those who have imported filth and whores, though we can 
attend to that class without so much expense to the Government. They will 
threaten us with United States troops ! Why. your impudence and ignorance 
would bring a blush to the cheek of the veriest camp-follower among them. We 
ask no odds of you. you rotten carcasses, and I am not going to bow one hair's 
breadth to your influence. I would rather be cut into inch pieces than succumb 
one particle to such filthiness. . . . If we were to establish a whorehouse on every 
corner of our streets, as in nearly all other cities outside of Utah, either by law 
or otherwise, we should doubtless then be considered good fellows." 1 

Two weeks later Brigham Young, in a sermon in the same place, 
said, " I said then, and I shall always say, that I shall be gov- 
ernor as long as the Lord Almighty wishes me to govern this 
people. 2 

In January, 1853, Orson Pratt, as Mormon representative, began 
the publication in Washington, D.C., of a monthly periodical called 
The Seer, in which he defended polygamy, explained the Mormon 
creed, and set forth the attitude of the Mormons toward the United 
States government. The latter subject occupied a large part of 
the issue of January, 1854, in the shape of questions and answers. 
The following will give an illustration of their tone : — 

'•' Q. — In what manner have the people of the United States treated the di- 
vine message contained in the Book of Mormon ? 

"A. — They have closed their eyes, their ears, their hearts and their doors 
against it. They have scorned, rejected and hated the servants of God who were 
sent to bear testimony of it. 

u 0. — In what manner has the United States treated the Saints who have 
believed in this divine message ? 

"A. — They have proceeded to the most savage and outrageous persecu- 
tions ; . . . dragged little children from their hiding-places, and. placing the muz- 
zles of their guns to their heads, have blown out their brains, with the most horrid 
oaths and imprecations. They have taken the fair daughters of American citizens, 
bound them on benches used for public worship, and there, in great numbers, 
ravished them until death came to their relief." 

Further answers were in the shape of an argument that the 
federal government was responsible for the losses of the Saints in 
Missouri and Illinois. 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. Ill, pp. 234-235. 2 Rid., p. 258. 



CHAPTER XII 



THE MORMON "WAR" 

The government at Washington and the people of the Eastern 
states knew a good deal more about Mormonism in 1856 than they 
did when Fillmore gave the appointment of governor to Young in 
1850. The return of one federal officer after another from Utah 
with a report that his office was untenable, even if his life was 
not in danger, the practical nullification of federal law, and 
the light that was beginning to be shed on Mormon social life 
by correspondents of Eastern newspapers had aroused enough 
public interest in the matter to lead the politicians to deem it 
worthy of their attention. Accordingly, the Republican National 
Convention, in June, 1856, inserted in its platform a plank declar- 
ing that the constitution gave Congress sovereign power over the 
territories, and that " it is both the right and the duty of Congress 
to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism — polyg- 
amy and slavery." 

A still more striking proof of the growing political importance 
of the Mormon question was afforded by the attention paid to it by 
Stephen A. Douglas in a speech in Springfield, Illinois, on June 12, 
1856, when he was hoping to secure the Democratic nomination 
for President. This former friend of the Mormons, their spokes- 
man in the Senate, now declared that reports from the territory 
seemed to justify the belief that nine-tenths of its inhabitants were 
aliens ; that all were bound by horrid oaths and penalties to recog- 
nize and maintain the authority of Brigham Young ; and that the 
Mormon government was forming alliances with the Indians, and 
organizing Danite bands to rob and murder American citizens. 
" Under this view of the subject," said he, " I think it is the duty 
of the President, as I have no doubt it is his fixed purpose, to re- 
move Brigham Young and all his followers from office, and to fill 
their places with bold, able, and true men ; and to cause a thorough 

476 



THE MORMON "WAR 



477 



and searching investigation into all the crimes and enormities 
which are alleged to be perpetrated daily in that territory under 
the direction of Brigham Young and his confederates ; and to use 
all the military force necessary to protect the officers in discharge 
of their duties and to enforce the laws of the land. When the 
authentic evidence shall arrive, if it shall establish the facts which 
are believed to exist, it will become the duty of Congress to apply 
the knife, and cut out this loathsome, disgusting ulcer." 1 

This, of course, caused the Mormons to pour out on Judge 
Douglas the vials of their wrath, and, when he failed to secure the 
presidential nomination, they found in his defeat the verification of 
one of Smith's prophecies. 

The Mormons, on their part, had never ceased their demands 
for statehood, and another of their efforts had been made in- the 
preceding spring, when a new constitution of the State of Deseret 
was adopted by a convention over which the notorious Jedediah 
M. Grant presided, and sent to Washington with a memorial plead- 
ing for admission to the Union, " that another star, shedding mild 
radiance from the tops of the mountains, midway between the bor- 
ders of the Eastern and Western civilization, may add its effulgence 
to that bright light now so broadly illumining the governmental 
pathway of nations " ; and declaring that "the loyalty of Utah has 
been variously and most thoroughly tested." Congress treated 
this application with practical contempt, the Senate laying the 
memorial on the table, and the chairman of the House Committee 
on Territories, Galusha A. Grow, refusing to present the constitu- 
tion to the House. 

Alarmed at the manifestations of public feeling in the East, and 
the demand that President Buchanan should do something to vin- 
dicate at least the dignity of the government, the Mormon leaders 
and press renewed their attacks on the character of all the federal 
officers who had criticised them, and the Deseret News urged the 
President to send to Utah " one or more civilians on a short visit 
to look about them and see what they can see, and return and 
report." The value of observations by such " short visitors " on 
such occasions need not be discussed. 

President Buchanan, instead of following any Mormon advice, 
soon after his inauguration directed the organization of a body of 

1 Text of the speech in New York Times of June 23, 1856. 



4/8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



troops to march to Utah to uphold the federal authorities, and in 
July, after several persons had declined the office, appointed as 
governor of Utah Alfred Cumming of Georgia. The appointee 
was a brother of Colonel William Cumming, who won renown as 
a soldier in the War of 1812, who was a Union party leader in the 
nullification contest in Jackson's time, and who was a participant 
in a duel with G. McDufne that occupied a good deal of attention. 
Alfred Cumming had filled no more important positions than those 
of mayor of Augusta, Georgia, sutler in the Mexican War, and 
superintendent of Indian affairs on the upper Missouri. A much 
more commendable appointment made at the same time was that 
of D. R. Eckles, a Kentuckian by birth, but then a resident of 
Indiana, to be chief justice of the territory. John Cradlebaugh 
and C. E. Sinclair were appointed associate justices, with John 
Hartnett as secretary, and Peter K. Dotson as marshal. The new 
governor gave the first illustration of his conception of his duties 
by remaining in the East, while the troops were moving, asking for 
an increase of his salary, a secret service fund, and for transporta- 
tion to Utah. Only the last of these requests was complied with. 

President Buchanan's position as regards Utah at this time was 
thus stated in his first annual message to Congress (December 8, 

1857):- 

"The people of Utah almost exclusively belong to this [Mormon] church, 
and, believing with a fanatical spirit that he [Young] is Governor of the Terri- 
tory by divine appointment, they obey his commands as if these were direct revela- 
tions from heaven. If, therefore, he chooses that his government shall come into 
collision with the government of the United States, the members of the Mormon 
church will yield implicit obedience to his will. Unfortunately, existing facts 
leave but little doubt that such is his determination. Without entering upon a 
minute history of occurrences, it is sufficient to say that all the officers of the 
United States, judicial and executive, with the single exception of two Indian 
agents, have found it necessary for their own safety to withdraw from the Terri- 
tory, and there no longer remained any government in Utah but the despotism of 
Brigham Young. This being the condition of affairs in the Territory, I could not 
mistake the path of duty. As chief executive magistrate, I was bound to restore 
the supremacy of the constitution and laws within its limits. In order to effect 
this purpose, I appointed a new governor and other federal officers for Utah, and 
sent with them a military force for their protection, and to aid as a posse comi- 
tatus in case of need in the execution of the laws. 

" With the religious opinions of the Mormons, as long as they remained mere 
opinions, however deplorable in themselves and revolting to the moral and religious 
sentiments of all Christendom, I have no right to interfere. Actions alone, when 



THE MORMON "WAR" 



479 



in violation of the constitution and laws of the United States, become the legiti- 
mate subjects for the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. My instructions to Gov- 
ernor Cumming have, therefore, been framed in strict accordance with these 
principles." 

This statement of the situation of affairs in Utah, and of the 
duty of the President in the circumstances, did not admit of criti- 
cism. But the country at that time was in a state of intense excite- 
ment over the slavery question, with the situation in Kansas the 
centre of attention ; and it was charged that Buchanan put for- 
ward the Mormon issue as a part of his scheme to " gag the North " 
and force some question besides slavery to the front; and that 
Secretary of War Floyd eagerly seized the opportunity to remove 
" the flower of the American army " and a vast amount of muni- 
tion and supplies to a distant place, remote from Eastern con- 
nections. The principal newspapers in this country were intensely 
partisan in those days, and party organs like the New York Trib- 
une could be counted on to criticise any important step taken by 
the Democratic President. Such Mormon agents as Colonel Kane 
and Dr. Bernhisel, the Utah Delegate to Congress, were doing 
active work in New York and Washington, and some of it with 
effect. Horace Greeley, in his " Overland Journey," describing 
his call on Brigham Young a few years later, says that he was 
introduced by "my friend Dr. Bernhisel." The "Tribune Alma- 
nac" for 1859, m an article on the Utah troubles, quoted as "too 
true " Young's declaration that " for the last twenty-five years we 
have trusted officials of the government, from constables and 
justices to judges, governors, and presidents, only to be scorned, 
held in derision, insulted and betrayed." 1 Ulterior motives aside, 
no President ever had a clearer duty than had Buchanan to 

1 Greeley's leaning to the Mormon side was quite persistent, leading him to support 
Governor Cumming a little later against the federal judges. The Mormons never for- 
got this. A Washington letter of April 24, 1874, to the New York Times said : " When 
Mr. Greeley was nominated for President the Mormons heartily hoped for his election. 
The church organs and the papers taken in the territory were all hostile to the admin- 
istration, and their clamor deceived for a time people far more enlightened than the fol- 
lowers of the modern Mohammed. It is said that, while the canvass was pending, certain 
representatives of the Liberal-Democratic alliance bargained with Brigham Young, and 
that he contributed a very large sum of money to the treasury of the Greeley fund, and 
that, in consideration of this contribution, he received assurances that, if he should send 
a polygamist to Congress, no opposition would be made by the supporters of the admin- 
istration that was to be, to* his admission to the House. Brigham therefore sent Cannon 
instead of returning Hooper." 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



maintain the federal authority in Utah, and to secure to all resi- 
dents in and travellers through that territory the rights of life 
and property. The just ground for criticising him is, not that 
he attempted to do this, but that he faltered by. the way. 1 

Early in 1856 arrangements were entered into with H. C. Kim- 
ball for a contract to carry the mail between Independence, Mis- 
souri, and Salt Lake City. Young saw in this the nucleus of a big 
company that would maintain a daily express and mail service to 
and from the Mormon centre, and he at once organized the Brig- 
ham Young Express Carrying Company, and had it commended to 
the people from the pulpit. But recent disclosures of Mormon 
methods and purposes had naturally caused the government to 
question the propriety of confiding the Utah and transcontinental 
mails to Mormon hands, and on June 10, 1857, Kimball was noti- 
fied that the government would not execute the contract with him, 
" the unsettled state of things at Salt Lake City rendering the 
mails unsafe under present circumstances." Mormon writers make 
much of the failure to execute this mail contract as an exciting 
cause of the "war." Tullidge attributes the action of the admin- 
istration to three documents — a letter from Mail Contractor W. 
M. F. Magraw to the President, describing the situation in Utah, 
Judge Drummond's letter of resignation, and a letter from Indian 
Agent T. S. Twiss, dated July 13, 1856, informing the government 
that a large Mormon colony had taken possession of Deer Creek 
Valley, only one hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, driving out 
a settlement of Sioux whom the agent had induced to plant corn 
there, and charging that the Mormon occupation was made with a 
view to the occupancy of the country, and " under cover of a con- 
tract of the Mormon church to carry the mails." 2 Tullidge's state- 
ment could be made with hope of its acceptance only to persons 
who either lacked the opportunity or inclination to ascertain the 
actual situation in Utah and the President's sources of information. 

As to the mails, no autocratic government like that of Brigham 
Young would neglect to make what use it pleased of them in its 

1 It is curious to notice that the Utah troubles are entirely ignored in the " Life of 
James Buchanan" (1883) by George Ticknor Curtis, who was the counsel for the Mor- 
mons in the argument concerning polygamy before the United States Supreme Court in 
1886. 

2 All these may be found in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session, 35th Congress. 



THE MORMON "WAR 



struggle with the authorities at Washington. As early as Novem- 
ber, 185 1, Indian Agent Holman wrote to the Indian commissioner 
at Washington from Salt Lake City : " The Gentiles, as we are 
called who do not belong to the Mormon church, have no confi- 
dence in the management of the post-office here. It is believed 
by many that there is an examination of all letters coming and go- 
ing, in order that they may ascertain what is said of them and by 
whom it is said. This opinion is so strong that all communications 
touching their character or conduct are either sent to Bridger or 
Laramie, there to be mailed. I send this communication through 
a friend to Laramie, to be there mailed for the States." 

Testimony on this point four years later, from an independent 
source, is found in a Salt Lake City letter, of November 3, 1855, to 
the New York Herald. The writer said : " From September 5, to 
the 27th instant the people of this territory had not received any 
news from the States except such as was contained in a few broken 
files of California papers. . . . Letters and papers come up miss- 
ing, and in the same mail come papers of very ancient dates ; but 
letters once missing may be considered as irrevocably lost. Of all 
the numerous numbers of Harper's, Gleason's, and other illustrated 
periodicals subscribed for by the inhabitants of this territory, not 
one, I have been informed, has ever reached here." 

The forces selected for the expedition to Utah consisted of the 
Second Dragoons, then stationed at Fort Leavenworth in view of 
possible trouble in Kansas ; the Fifth Infantry, stationed at that 
time in Florida ; the Tenth Infantry, then in the forts in Minnesota ; 
and Phelps's Battery of the Fourth Artillery, that had distinguished 
itself at Buena Vista — a total of about fifteen hundred men. 
Reno's Battery was added later. 

General Scott's order provided for two thousand head of cattle 
to be driven with the troops, six months' supply of bacon, desic- 
cated vegetables, 250 Sibley tents, and stoves enough to supply at 
least the sick. General Scott himself had advised a postponement 
of the expedition until the next year, on account of the late date 
at which it would start, but he was overruled. The commander 
originally selected for this force was General W. S. Harney ; but 
the continued troubles in Kansas caused his retention there (as 
well as that of the Second Dragoons), and, when the government 
found that the Mormons proposed serious resistance, the chief 
2 1 



482 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



command was given to Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, a West 
Point graduate, who had made a record in the Black Hawk War ; 
in the service of the state of Texas, first in 1836 under General 
Rusk, and eventually as commander-in-chief in the field, and later 
as Secretary of War ; and in the Mexican War as colonel of the 
First Texas Rifles. He was killed at the battle of Shiloh during 
the War of the Rebellion. 

General Harney's letter of instruction, dated June 29, giving the 
views of General Scott and the War Department, stated that the civil 
government in Utah was in a state of rebellion ; he was to attack 
no body of citizens, however, except at the call of the governor, 
the judges, or the marshals, the troops to be considered as a posse 
comitatus; he was made responsible for "a jealous, harmonious, 
and thorough cooperation " with the governor, accepting his views 
when not in conflict with military judgment and prudence. While 
the general impression, both at Washington and among the troops, 
was that no actual resistance to this force would be made by 
Young's followers, the general was told that " prudence requires 
that you should anticipate resistance, general, organized, and 
formidable, at the threshold." 

Great activity was shown in forwarding the necessary supplies 
to Fort Leavenworth, and in the last two weeks of July most of 
the assigned troops were under way. Colonel Johnston arrived at 
Fort Leavenworth on September 11, assigned six companies of the 
Second Dragoons, under Lieutenant Colonel P. St. George Cooke, 
as an escort to Governor Cumming, and followed immediately after 
them. Major (afterward General) Fitz John Porter, who accom- 
panied Colonel Johnston as assistant adjutant general, describing 
the situation in later years, said : — 

" So late in the season had the troops started on this march that fears were 
entertained that, if they succeeded in reaching their destination, it would be only 
by abandoning the greater part of their supplies, and endangering the lives of 
many men amid the snows of the Rocky Mountains. So much was a terrible dis- 
aster feared by those acquainted with the rigors of a winter life in the Rocky 
Mountains, that General Harney was said to have predicted it, and to have 
induced Walker [of Kansas] to ask his retention. 1 ' 

Meanwhile, the Mormons had received word of what was com- 
ing. When A. O. Smoot reached a point one hundred miles west 
of Independence, with the mail for Salt Lake City, he met heavy 



THE MORMON "WAR 



433 



freight teams which excited his suspicion, and at Kansas City 
obtained sufficient particulars of the federal expedition. Returning 
to Fort Laramie, he and O. P. Rockwell started on July 18, in a 
light wagon drawn by two fast horses, to carry the news to Brig- 
ham Young. They made the 513 miles in five days and three 
hours, arriving on the evening of July 23. Undoubtedly they 
gave Young this important information immediately. But Young 
kept it to himself that night. On the following day occurred the 
annual celebration of the arrival of the pioneers in the valley. To 
the big gathering of Saints at Big Cottonwood Lake, twenty-four 
miles from the city, Young dramatically announced the news of 
the coming "invasion." His position was characteristically defi- 
ant. He declared that " he would ask no odds of Uncle Sam or 
the devil," and predicted that he would be President of the United 
States in twelve years, or would dictate the successful candidate. 
Recalling his declaration ten years earlier that, after ten years of 
peace, they would ask no odds of the United States, he declared 
that that time had passed, and that thenceforth they would be a 
free and independent state — the State of Deseret. 

The followers of Young eagerly joined in his defiance of the 
government, and in the succeeding weeks the discourses and the 
editorials of the Deseret News breathed forth dire threats against 
the advancing foe. Thus, the News of August 12 told the Wash- 
ington authorities, " If you intend to continue the appointment 
of certain officers," — that is, if you do not intend to surrender 
to the church federal jurisdiction in Utah — " we respectfully sug- 
gest that you appoint actually intelligent and honorable men,who 
will wisely attend to their own duties, and send them unaccom- 
panied by troops " — that is, judges who would acknowledge the 
supremacy of the Mormon courts, or who, if not, would have no 
force to sustain them. This was followed by a threat that if any 
other kind of men were sent "$iey will really need a far larger 
bodyguard than twenty-five hundred soldiers." 1 The government 

1 An Englishman, in a letter to the New York Observer, dated London, May 26, 
1857, said, "The English Mormons make no secret of their expectation that a collision 
will take place with the American authorities," and he quoted from a Mormon preacher's 
words as follows : " As to a collision with the American Government, there cannot be 
two opinions on the matter. We shall have judges, governors, senators and dragoons 
invading us, imprisoning and murdering us; but we are prepared, and are preparing 
judges, governors, senators and dragoons who will know how to dispose of their friends. 



484 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



was, in another editorial, called on to " entirely clear the track, 
and accord us the privilege of carrying our own mails at our own 
expense," and was accused of "high handedly taking away our 
rights and privileges, one by one, under pretext that the most 
devilish should blush at." 

Young in the pulpit was in his element. One example of his 
declarations must suffice : — 

" I am not going to permit troops here for the protection of the priests and 
the rabble in their efforts to drive us from the land we possess. . . . You might 
as well tell me that you can make hell into a powder house as to tell me that 
they intend to keep an army here and have peace. ... I have told you that if 
there is any man or woman who is not willing to destroy everything of their 
property that would be of use to an enemy if left, I would advise them to leave 
the territory, and I again say so to-day ; for when the time comes to burn and lay 
waste our improvements, if any man undertakes to shield his, he will be treated 
as a traitor ; for judgment will be laid to the line and righteousness to the plum- 
met." 1 

The official papers of Governor Young are perhaps the best 
illustrations of the spirit with which the federal authorities had to 
deal. 

Words, however, were not the only weapons which the Mormons 
employed against the government at the start. Daniel H. Wells, 
" Lieutenant General " and commander of the Nauvoo Legion, 
which organization had been kept up in Utah, issued, on August I, 
a despatch to each of twelve commanding officers of the Legion in 
the different settlements in the territory, declaring that "when 
anarchy takes the place of orderly government, and mobocratic 
tyranny usurps the powers of the rulers, they [the people of the 
territory] have left the inalienable right to defend themselves 
against all aggression upon their constitutional privileges " ; and 
directing them to hold their commands ready to march to any 
part of the territory, with ammunition, wagons, and clothing for a 
winter campaign. In the Legion were enrolled all the able-bodied 
males between eighteen and forty-five years, under command of a 
lieutenant general, four generals, eleven colonels, and six majors. 

The first mobilization of this force took place on August 15, 

The little stone will come into collision with the iron and clay and grind them to powder. 
It will be in Utah as it was in Nauvoo, with this difference, we are prepared now for offen- 
sive or defensive war; we were not then." 

1 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 160. 



THE MORMON "WAR" 



485 



when a company was sent eastward over the usual route to aid 
incoming immigrants and learn the strength of the federal force. 
By the employment of similar scouts the Mormons were thus kept 
informed of every step of the army's advance. A scouting party 
camped within half a mile of the foremost company near Devil's 
Gate on September 22, and did not lose sight of it again until it 
went into camp at Harris's Fort, where supplies had been forwarded 
in advance. 

Captain Stewart Van Vliet, of General Harney's staff, was sent 
ahead of the troops, leaving Fort Leavenworth on July 28, to visit 
Salt Lake City, ascertain the disposition of the church authorities 
and the people toward the government, and obtain any other infor- 
mation that would be of use. Arriving in Salt Lake City in thirty- 
three and a half days, he was received with affability by Young, 
and there was a frank interchange of views between them. Young 
recited the past trials of the Mormons farther east, and said that 
" therefore he and the people of Utah had determined to resist all 
persecution at the commencement, and that the troops now on the 
march for Utah should not enter the Great Salt Lake Valley. As 
he uttered these words, all those present concurred most heartily." 1 
Young said they had an abundance of everything required by the 
federal troops, but that nothing would be sold to the government. 
When told that, even if they did succeed in preventing the present 
military force from entering the valley the coming winter, they 
would have to yield to a larger force the following year, the reply 
was that that larger force would find Utah a desert; they would 
burn every house, cut down every tree, lay waste every field. " We 
have three years' provisions on hand," Young added, "which we 
will cache, and then take to the mountains and bid defiance to all 
the powers of the government." 

When Young called for a vote on that proposition by an audi- 
ence of four thousand persons in the Tabernacle, every hand was 

1 The quotations are from Captain Van Vliet's official report in House Ex. Doc. 
No. 71, previously referred to. Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City" (p. 161) gives 
extracts from Apostle Woodruff's private journal of notes on the interview between 
Young and Captain Van Vliet, on September 12 and 13, in which Young is reported as 
saying : " We do not want to fight the United States, but if they drive us to it we shall 
do the best we can. God will overthrow them. We are the supporters of the constitu- 
tion of the United States. If they dare to force the issue, I shall not hold the Indians 
by the wrist any longer for white men to shoot at them; they shall go ahead and do as 
they please." 



486 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



raised to vote yes. Captain Van Vliet summed up his view of the 
situation thus : that it would not be difficult for the Mormons to 
prevent the entrance of the approaching force that season ; that 
they would not resort to actual hostilities until the last moment, 
but would burn the grass, stampede the animals, and cause delay 
in every manner. 

The day after Captain Van Vliet left Salt Lake City, Governor 
Young gave official expression to his defiance of the federal gov- 
ernment by issuing the following proclamation : — 

" Citizens of Utah : We are invaded by a hostile force, who are evidently 
assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction. 

"For the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the government, 
from constables and justices to judges, governors, and Presidents, only to be 
scorned, held in derision, insulted, and betrayed. Our houses have been plun- 
dered and then burned, our fields laid waste, our principal men butchered, while 
under the pledged faith of the government for their safety, and our families driven 
from their homes to find that shelter in the barren wilderness and that protection 
among hostile savages, which were denied them in the boasted abodes of Christi- 
anity and civilization. 

" The constitution of our common country guarantees unto us all that we do 
now or have ever claimed. If the constitutional rights which pertain unto us as 
American citizens were extended to Utah, according to the spirit and meaning 
thereof, and fairly and impartially administered, it is all that we can ask, all that 
we have ever asked. 

" Our opponents have availed themselves of prejudice existing against us, 
because of our religious faith, to send out a formidable host to accomplish our 
destruction. We have had no privilege or opportunity of defending ourselves 
from the false, foul, and unjust aspersions against us before the nation. The 
government has not condescended to cause an investigating committee, or other 
persons, to be sent to inquire into and ascertain the truth, as is customary in such 
cases. We know those aspersions to be false; but that avails us nothing. We 
are condemned unheard, and forced to an issue with an armed mercenary mob, 
which has been sent against us at the instigation of anonymous letter writers, 
ashamed to father the base, slanderous falsehoods which they have given to the 
public ; of corrupt officials, who have brought false accusations against us to screen 
themselves in their own infamy ; and of hireling priests and howling editors, who 
prostitute the truth for filthy lucre's sake. 

"The issue which has thus been forced upon us compels us to resort to the 
great first law of self-preservation, and stand in our own defence, a right guaran- 
teed to us by the genius of the institutions of our country, and upon which the 
government is based. Our duty to ourselves, to our families, requires us not to 
tamely submit to be driven and slain, without an attempt to preserve ourselves ; 
our duty to our country, our holy religion, our God, to freedom and liberty, re- 
quires that we should not quietly stand still and see those fetters forging around 



THE MORMON "WAR" 



487 



us which were calculated to enslave and bring us in subjection to an unlawful, 
military despotism, such as can only emanate, in a country of constitutional law, 
from usurpation, tyranny, and oppression. 

"Therefore, I, Brigham Young, Governor and Superintendent of Indian 
Affairs for the Territory of Utah, in the name of the people of the United States 
in the Territory of Utah, forbid : — 

"First. All armed forces of every description from coming into this Terri- 
tory, under any pretence whatever. 

" Second. That all forces in said Territory hold themselves in readiness to 
march at a moment's notice to repel any and all such invasion. 

"Third. Martial law is hereby declared to exist in this Territory from and 
after the publication of this proclamation, and no person shall be allowed to pass 
or repass into or through or from this Territory without a permit from the proper 
officer. 

" Given under my hand and seal, at Great Salt Lake City, Territory of Utah, 
this 15th day of September, a.d. 1857, and of the independence of the United 
States of America the eighty-second. a Brigham Y oung." 

The advancing troops received from Captain Van Vliet as he 
passed eastward their first information concerning the attitude of 
the Mormons toward them, and Colonel Alexander, in command 
of the foremost companies, accepted his opinion that the Mormons 
would not attack them if the army did not advance beyond Fort 
Bridger or Fort Supply, this idea being strengthened by the fact 
that one hundred wagon loads of stores, undefended, had remained 
unmolested on Ham's Fork for three weeks. The first division of 
the federal troops marched across Greene River on September 27, 
and hurried on thirty-five miles to what was named Camp Winfield, 
on Ham's Fork, a confluent of Black Fork, which emptied into 
Greene River. Phelps's and Reno's batteries and the Fifth Infantry 
reached there about the same time, but there was no cavalry, the 
kind of force most needed, because of the detention of the Dragoons 
in Kansas. 

On September 30 General Wells forwarded to Colonel Alexan- 
der, from Fort Bridger, Brigham Young's proclamation of Sep- 
tember 15, a copy of the laws of Utah, and the following letter 
addressed to " the officer commanding the forces now invading 
Utah Territory " : — 

" Governor's Office, Utah Territory, 
Great Salt Lake City, September 29, 1857. 
" Sir : By reference to the act of Congress passed September 9, 1850, organ- 
izing the Territory of Utah, published in a copy of the laws of Utah, herewith 
forwarded, pp. 146-147, you will find the following : — 



488 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" ' Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, that the executive power and authority 
in and over said Territory of Utah shall be vested in a Governor, who shall hold 
his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, 
unless sooner removed by the President of the United States. The Governor 
shall reside within said Territory, shall be Commander-in-chief of the militia 
thereof 1 , etc., etc. 

'•'I am still the Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for this Terri- 
tory, no successor having been appointed and qualified, as provided by law ; nor 
have I been removed by the President of the United States. 

" By virtue of the authority thus vested in me, I have issued, and forwarded 
you a copy of, my proclamation forbidding the entrance of armed forces into this 
Territory. This you have disregarded. I now further direct that you retire forth- 
with from the Territory, by the same route you entered. Should you deem this 
impracticable, and prefer to remain until spring in the vicinity of your present 
encampment, Black's Fork or Greene River, you can do so in peace and unmo- 
lested, on condition that you deposit your arms and ammunition with Lewis 
Robinson, Quartermaster General of the Territory, and leave in the spring, as 
soon as the condition of the roads will permit you to march ; and, should you 
fall short of provisions, they can be furnished you, upon making the proper appli- 
cations therefor. General D. H. Wells will forward this, and receive any com- 
munications you may have to make. 

" Very respectfully, 

" Brigham Young, 
" Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Utah Territory." 

General Wells's communication added to this impudent an- 
nouncement the declaration, " It may be proper to add that I am 
here to aid in carrying out the instructions of Governor Young." 

On October 2 Colonel Alexander, in a note to Governor Young, 
acknowledged the receipt of his enclosures, said that he would sub- 
mit Young's letter to the general commanding as soon as he arrived, 
and added, " In the meantime I have only to say that these troops 
are here by the orders of the President of the United States, and 
their future movements and operations will depend entirely upon 
orders issued by competent military authority." 

Two Mormon officers, General Robinson and Major Lot Smith, 
had been sent to deliver Young's letter and proclamation to the 
federal officer in command, but they did not deem it prudent to 
perform this office in person, sending a Mexican with them into 
Colonel Alexander's camp. 1 In the same way they received 
Colonel Alexander's reply. 

The Mormon plan of campaign was already mapped out, and 

1 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 171. 



THE MORMON "WAR 



489 



it was thus stated in an order of their commanding general, D. H. 
Wells, a copy of which was found on a Mormon major, Joseph 
Taylor, to v/hom it was addressed : — 

" You will proceed, with all possible despatch, without injuring your animals, 
to the Oregon road, near the bend of Bear River, north by east of this place. 
Take close and correct observations of the country on your route. When you 
approach the road, send scouts ahead to ascertain if the invading troops have passed 
that way. Should they have passed, take a concealed route and get ahead of 
them, express to Colonel Benton, who is now on that road and in the vicinity of 
the troops, and effect a junction with him, so as to operate in concert. On ascer- 
taining the locality or route of the troops, proceed at once to annoy them in every 
possible way. Use every exertion to stampede their animals and set fire to their 
trains. Burn the whole country before them and on their flanks. Keep them 
from sleeping by night surprises ; blockade the road by felling trees or destroying 
river fords, where you can. Watch for opportunities to set fire to the grass on 
their windward, so as if possible to envelop their trains. Leave no grass before 
them that can be burned. Keep your men concealed as much as possible, and 
guard against surprise. Keep scouts out at all times, and communications open 
with Colonel Benton, Major McAllster and O. P. Rockwell, who are operating in 
the same way. Keep me advised daily of your movements, and every step the 
troops take, and in which direction. 

" God bless you and give you success. Your brother in Christ." 

The first man selected to carry out this order was Major Lot 
Smith. Setting out at 4 p.m., on October 3, with forty-four men, 
after an all night's ride, he came up with a federal supply train 
drawn by oxen. The captain of this train was ordered to " go the 
other way till he reached the States." As he persistently retraced 
his steps as often as the Mormons moved away, the latter relieved 
his wagons of their load and left him. Sending one of his captains 
with twenty men to capture or stampede the mules of the Tenth 
Regiment, Smith, with the remainder of his force, started for Sandy 
Fork to intercept army trains. 

Scouts sent ahead to investigate a distant cloud of dust re- 
ported that it was made by a freight train of twenty-six wagons. 
Smith allowed this train to proceed until dark, and then approached 
it undiscovered. Finding the drivers drunk, as he afterward ex- 
plained, and fearing that they would be belligerent and thus com- 
pel him to disobey his instruction " not to hurt any one except in 
self-defence," he lay concealed until after midnight. His scouts 
meanwhile had reported to him that the train was drawn up for 
the night in two lines. Allowing the usual number of men to each 



490 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



wagon, Smith decided that his force of twenty-four was sufficient 
to capture the outfit, and, mounting his command, he ordered an 
advance on the camp. But a surprise was in store for him. His 
scouts had failed to discover that a second train had joined the 
first, and that twice the force anticipated confronted them. When 
this discovery was made, the Mormons were too close to escape 
observation. Members of Smith's party expected that their leader 
would now make some casual inquiry and then ride on, as if his 
destination were elsewhere. Smith, however, decided differently. 
As his force approached the camp-fire that was burning close to the 
wagons, he noticed that the rear of his column was not distinguish- 
able in the darkness, and that thus the smallness of their number 
could not be immediately discovered. He, therefore, asked at 
once for the captain of the train, and one Dawson stepped for- 
ward. Smith directed him to have his men collect their private 
property at once, as he intended to "put a little fire" into the 
wagons. " For God's sake, don't burn the trains," was the reply. 
Dawson was curtly told where his men were to stack their arms, 
and where they were themselves to stand under guard. Then, 
making a torch, Smith ordered one of the government drivers to 
apply it, in order that " the Gentiles might spoil the Gentiles," as 
he afterward expressed it. The destruction of the supplies was 
complete. Smith allowed an Indian to take two wagon covers 
for a lodge, and some flour and soap, and compelled Dawson to 
get out some provisions for his own men. Nothing else was 
spared. 

The official list of rations thus destroyed included 2720 pounds 
of ham, 92,700 of bacon, 167,900 of flour, 8910 of coffee, 1400 of 
sugar, 1333 of soap, 800 of sperm candles, 765 of tea, 7781 of 
hard bread, and 68,832 rations of desiccated vegetables. 

Another train was destroyed by the same party the next day 
on the Big Sandy, besides a few sutlers' wagons that were strag- 
gling behind. 

On October 5 Colonel Alexander assumed command of all the 
troops in the camp. He found his position a trying one. In a 
report dated October 8, he said that his forage would last only 
fourteen days, that no information of the position or intentions of 
the commanding officer had reached him, and that, strange as it 
may appear, he was "in utter ignorance of the objects of the gov- 



THE MORMON "WAR" 



491 



ernment in sending troops here, or the instructions given for their 
conduct after reaching here." In these circumstances, he called a 
council of his officers and decided to advance without waiting for 
Colonel Johnston and the other companies, as he believed that de- 
lay would endanger the entire force. He selected as his route to 
a wintering place, not the most direct one to Salt Lake City, inas- 
much as the canons could be easily defended, but one twice as 
long (three hundred miles), by way of Soda Springs, and thence 
either down Bear River Valley or northeast toward the Wind River 
Mountains, according to the resistance he might encounter. 

The march, in accordance with this decision, began on October 
11, and aweary and profitless one it proved to be. Snow was 
falling as the column moved, and the ground was covered with it 
during their advance. There was no trail, and a road had to be 
cut through the greasewood and sage brush. The progress was so 
slow — often only three miles a day — and the supply train so long, 
that camp would sometimes be pitched for the night before the 
rear wagons would be under way. Wells's men continued to carry 
out his orders, and, in the absence of federal cavalry, with little 
opposition. One day eight hundred oxen were " cut out " and 
driven toward Salt Lake City. 

Conditions like these destroyed the morale of both officers and 
men, and there were divided counsels among the former, and com- 
plaints among the latter. Finally, after having made only thirty- 
five miles in nine days, Colonel Alexander himself became 
discouraged, called another council, and, in obedience to its deci- 
sion, on October 19 directed his force to retrace their steps. They 
moved back in three columns, and on November 2 all of them had 
reached a camp on Black's Fork, two miles above Fort Bridger. 

Colonel Johnston had arrived at Fort Laramie on October 5, 
and, after a talk with Captain Van Vliet, had retained two addi- 
tional companies of infantry that were on the way to Fort Leaven- 
worth. As he proceeded, rumors of the burning of trains, 
exaggerated as is usual in such times, reached him. Having only 
about three hundred men to guard a wagon train six miles in length, 
some of the drivers showed signs of panic, and the colonel deemed 
the situation so serious that he accepted an offer of fifty or sixty 
volunteers from the force of the superintendent of the South Pass 
wagon road. He was fortunate in having as his guide the well- 



492 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



known James Bridger, to whose knowledge of Rocky Mountain 
weather signs they owed escapes from much discomfort, by making 
camps in time to avoid coming storms. 

But even in camp a winter snowstorm is serious to a moving 
column, especially when it deprives the animals of their forage, as 
it did now. The forage supply was almost exhausted when South 
Pass was reached, and the draught and beef cattle were in a sad 
plight. Then came another big snowstorm and a temperature of 
1 6°, during which eleven mules and a number of oxen were frozen 
to death. In this condition of affairs, Colonel Johnston decided 
that a winter advance into Salt Lake Valley was impracticable. 
Learning of Colonel Alexander's move, which he did not approve, 
he sent word for him to join forces with his own command on 
Black's Fork, and there the commanding officer arrived on 
November 3. 

Lieutenant Colonel Cooke, of the Second Dragoons, with whom 
Governor Cumming was making the trip, had a harrowing experi- 
ence. There was much confusion in organizing his regiment of 
six companies at Fort Leavenworth, and he did not begin his 
march until September 17, with a miserable lot of mules and 
insufficient supplies. He found little grass for the animals, and 
after crossing the South Platte on October 1 5, they began to die or to 
drop out. From that point snow and sleet storms were encountered, 
and, when Fort Laramie was reached, so many of the animals had 
been left behind or were unable to travel, that some of his men 
were dismounted, the baggage supply was reduced, and even the 
ambulances were used to carry grain. After passing Devil's Gate, 
they encountered a snowstorm on November 5. The best shelter 
their guide could find was a lofty natural wall at a point known as 
Three Crossings. Describing their night there he says : " Only a 
part of the regiment could huddle behind the rock in the deep 
snow ; whilst, the long night through, the storm continued, and in 
fearful eddies from above, before, behind, drove the falling and 
drifting snow. Thus exposed, for the hope of grass the poor 
animals were driven, with great devotion, by the men once more 
across the stream and three-quarters of a mile beyond, to the base 
of a granite ridge, which almost faced the storm. There the 
famished mules, crying piteously, did not seek to eat, but desperately 
gathered in a mass, and some horses, escaping guard, went back 



THE MORMON "WAR" 



493 



to the ford, where the lofty precipice first gave us so pleasant relief 
and shelter." 

The march westward was continued through deep snow and 
against a cold wind. On November 8 twenty-three mules had 
given out, and five wagons had to be abandoned. On the night of 
the 9th, when the mules were tied to the wagons, " they gnawed 
and destroyed four wagon tongues, a number of wagon covers, 
ate their ropes, and getting loose, ate the sage fuel collected at the 
tents." On November 10 nine horses were left dying on the road, 
and the thermometer was estimated to have marked twenty-five 
degrees below zero. Their thermometers were all broken, but 
the freezing of a bottle of sherry in a trunk gave them a basis of 
calculation. 

The command reached a camp three miles below Fort Bridger 
on November 19. Of one hundred and forty-four horses with 
which they started, only ten reached that camp. 



CHAPTER XIII 



THE MORMON PURPOSE 

When Colonel Johnston arrived at the Black's Fork camp the 
information he received from Colonel Alexander, and certain cor- 
respondence with the Mormon authorities, gave him a comprehen- 
sive view of the situation ; and on November 5 he forwarded a 
report to army headquarters in the East, declaring that it was the 
matured design of the Mormons " to hold and occupy this terri- 
tory independent of and irrespective of the authority of the United 
States," entertaining "the insane design of establishing a form of 
government thoroughly despotic, and utterly repugnant to our 
institutions." 

The correspondence referred to began with a letter from Brig- 
ham Young to Colonel Alexander, dated October 14. Opening 
with a declaration of Young's patriotism, and the brazen assertion 
that the people of Utah " had never resisted even the wish of the 
President of the United States, nor treated with indignity a single 
individual coming to the territory under his authority," he went 
on to say : — 

" But when the President of the United States so far degrades his high posi- 
tion, and prostitutes the highest gift of the people, as to make use of the military 
power (only intended for the protection of the people's rights) to crush the peo- 
ple's liberties, and compel them to receive officials so lost to self-respect as to 
accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so 
craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we 
feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, 
and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which 
is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt stages, 
against the rights, liberties, and lives of our forefathers." 

He then appealed to Colonel Alexander, as probably "the 
unwilling agent" of the administration, to return East with his 
force, saying, " I have yet to learn that United States officers are 

494 



THE MORMON PURPOSE 



495 



implicitly bound to obey the dictum of a despotic President, in 
violating the most sacred constitutional rights of American citi- 
zens." 

On October 18 Colonel Alexander, acknowledging the receipt 
of Young's letter, said in his reply that no one connected with his 
force had any wish to interfere in any way with the religion of the 
people of Utah, adding: "I repeat my earnest desire to avoid 
violence and bloodshed, and it will require positive resistance to 
force me to it. But my troops have the same right of self-defence 
that you claim, and it rests entirely with you whether they are 
driven to the exercise of it." 

Finding that he could not cajole the federal officer, Young 
threw off all disguise, and in reply to an earlier letter of Colonel 
Alexander, he gave free play to his vituperative powers. After 
going over the old Mormon complaints, and declaring that " both 
we and the Kingdom of God will be free from all hellish oppress- 
ors, the Lord being our helper," he wrote at great length in the 
following tone : — 

" If you persist in your attempt to permanently locate an army in this Terri- 
tory, contrary to the wishes and constitutional rights of the people therein, and 
with a view to aid the administration in their unhallowed efforts to palm their 
corrupt officials upon us, and to protect them and blacklegs, black-hearted scoun- 
drels, whoremasters, and murderers, as was the sole intention in sending you and 
your troops here, you will have to meet a mode of warfare against which your 
tactics furnish you no information. . . . 

" If George Washington was now living, and at the helm of our government, 
he would hang the administration as high as he did Andre', and that, too, with 
a far better grace and to a much greater subserving the best interests of our 
country. . . . 

" By virtue of my office as Governor of the Territory of Utah, I command 
you to marshal your troops and leave this territory, for it can be of no possible 
benefit to you to wickedly waste treasures and blood in prosecuting your course 
upon the side of a rebellion against the general government by its administra- 
tors. . . . Were you and your fellow officers as well acquainted with your sol- 
diers as I am with mine, and did they understand the work they were now engaged 
in as well as you may understand it, you must know that many of them would 
immediately revolt from all connection with so ungodly, illegal, unconstitutional 
and hellish a crusade against an innocent people, and if their blood is shed it shall 
rest upon the heads of their commanders. With us it is the Kingdom of God or 
nothing." 

To this Colonel Alexander replied, on the 19th, that no citizen 
of Utah would be harmed through the instrumentality of the 



496 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



army in the performance of its duties without molestation, and that, 
as Young's order to leave the territory was illegal and beyond 
his authority, it would not be obeyed. 

John Taylor, on October 21, added to this correspondence a 
letter to Captain Marcy, in which he ascribed to party necessity — 
the necessity of something with which to meet the declaration of 
the Republicans against polygamy — the order of the President 
that troops should accompany the new governor to Utah ; declared 
that the religion of the Mormons was " a right guaranteed to us 
by the constitution " ; and reiterated their purpose, if driven to 
it, "to burn every house, tree, shrub, rail, every patch of grass 
and stack of straw and hay, and flee to the mountains." " How 
a large army would fare without resources," he added, "you can 
picture to yourself." 1 

The Mormon authorities meant just what they said from the 
start. Young was as determined to be the head of the civil govern- 
ment of the territory as he was to be the head of the church. He 
had founded a practical dictatorship, with power over life and 
property, and had discovered that such a dictatorship was neces- 
sary to the regulation of the flock that he had gathered around 
him and to the schemes that he had in mind. To permit a federal 
governor to take charge of the territory, backed up by troops 
who would sustain him in his authority, meant an end to Young's 
absolute rule. Rather than submit to this, he stood ready to make 
the experiment of fighting the government force, separated as that 
force was from its Eastern base of supplies ; to lay waste the Mormon 
settlements, if it became necessary to use this method of causing 
a federal retreat by starvation ; and, if this failed, to withdraw his 
flock to some new Zion farther south. 

In accordance with this view, as soon as news of the approach 
of the troops reached Salt Lake Valley, all the church industries 
stopped ; war supplies — weapons and clothing — were manufac- 
tured and accumulated ; all the elders in Europe were ordered 
home, and the outlying colonies in Carson Valley and in southern 
California were directed to hasten to Salt Lake City. A corre- 
spondent of the San Francisco Bulletin at San Bernardino, Cali- 
fornia, reported that in the last six months the Mormons there 

1 Text of this letter in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session, 35th Congress, and 
Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City." 



THE MORMON PURPOSE 



49/ 



had sent four or five tons of gunpowder and many weapons to 
Utah, and that, when the order to "gather" at the Mormon me- 
tropolis came, they sacrificed everything to obey it, selling real 
estate at a reduction of from 20 to 50 per cent, and furniture for 
any price that it would bring. The same sacrifices were made in 
Carson Valley, where 150 wagons were required to accommodate 
the movers. 

In Salt Lake City the people were kept wrought up to the 
highest pitch by the teachings of their leaders. Thus, Amasa W. 
Lyman told them, on October 8, that they would not be driven 
away, because "the time has come when the Kingdom of God 
should be built up." 1 Young told them the same day, " If we 
will stand up as men and women of God, the yoke shall never be 
placed upon our necks again, and all hell cannot overthrow us, 
even with the United States troops to help them." 2 Kimball told 
the people in the Tabernacle, on October 18 : "They [the United 
States] will have to make peace with us, and we never again shall 
make peace with them. If they come here, they have got to give 
up their arms." Describing his plan of campaign, at the same 
service, after the reading of the correspondence between Young 
and Colonel Alexander, Young said : " Do you want to know what 
is going to be done with the enemies now on our border ? As 
soon as they start to come into our settlements, let sleep depart 
from their eyes and slumber from their eyelids until they sleep in 
death. Men shall be secreted here and there, and shall waste 
away our enemies in the name of Israel's God." 3 

Young was equally explicit in telling members of his own flock 
what they might expect if they tried to depart at that time. In a 
discourse in the Tabernacle, on October 25, he said : — 

u If any man or woman in Utah wants to leave this community, come to me 
and I will treat you kindly, as I always have, and will assist you to leave ; but 
after you have left our settlements you must not then depend upon me any longer^ 
nor upon the God I serve. You must meet the doom you have labored for. . . . 
After this season, when this ignorant army has passed off, I shall never again say 
to a man, 1 Stay your rifle ball,' when our enemies assail us, but shall say, ' Slay 
them where you find them. 1 " 4 

Kimball, on November 8, spoke with equal plainness on this 
subject : — 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. V, p. 319. 8 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 338. 

2 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 332. 4 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 352. 

2 K 



498 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" When it is necessary that blood should be shed, we should be as ready to 
do that as to eat an apple. That is my religion, and I feel that our platter is 
pretty near clean of some things, and we calculate to keep it clean from this time 
henceforth and forever. . . . And if men and women will not live their religion, 
but take a course to pervert the hearts of the righteous, we will ' lay judgment to 
the line and righteousness to the plummet,' and we will let you know that the 
earth can swallow you up as did Koran with his hosts ; and, as Brother Taylor 
says, you may dig your graves, and we will slay you and you may crawl into 
them." 1 

The Mormon songs of the day breathed the same spirit of 
defiance to the United States authorities. A popular one at the 
Tabernacle services began : — 

" Old Uncle Sam has sent, I understand, 
Du dah, 

A Missouri ass to rule our land, 

Du dah! Du dah day. 
But if he comes we'll have some fun, 
Du dah, 

To see him and his juries run, 

Du dah ! Du dah day. 

Chorus : Then let us be on hand, 

By Brigham Young to stand, 
And if our enemies do appear, 
We'll sweep them from the land." 

Another still more popular song, called "Zion," contained 
these words : — 

" Here our voices we'll raise, and will sing to thy praise, 
Sacred home of the Prophets of God ; 
Thy deliverance is nigh, thy oppressors shall die, 
And the Gentiles shall bow 'neath thy rod." 

When the Mormons found that the federal forces had gone 
into winter quarters, the Nauvoo Legion was massed in a camp 
called Camp Weber, at the mouth of Echo Canon. This canon 
they fortified with ditches and breastworks, and some dams in- 
tended to flood the roadway ; but they succeeded in erecting no 
defences which could not have been easily overcome by a disci- 
plined force. A watch was set day and night, so that no move- 
ment of " the invaders " could escape them, and the officer in charge 
was particularly forbidden to allow any civil officer appointed by 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. VI, p. 34. 



THE MORMON PURPOSE 



499 



the President to pass. This careful arrangement was kept up all 
winter, but Tullidge says that no spies were necessary, as deserting 
soldiers and teamsters from the federal camp kept coming into the 
valley with information. 

The territorial legislature met in December, and approved Gov- 
ernor Young's course, every member signing a pledge to maintain 
"the rights and liberties" of the territory. The legislators sent a 
memorial to Congress, dated January 6, 1858, demanding to be 
informed why " a hostile course is pursued toward an unoffending 
people," calling the officers who had fled from the territory liars, 
declaring that "we shall not again hold still while fetters are 
being forged to bind us," etc. This offensive document reached 
Washington in March, and was referred in each House to the 
Committee on Territories, where it remained. 

When the federal forces reached Fort Bridger, they found that 
the Mormons had burned the buildings, and it was decided to 
locate the winter camp — named Camp Scott — on Black's Fork, 
two miles above the fort. The governor and other civil officers 
spent the winter in another camp near by, named " Ecklesville," 
occupying dugouts, which they covered with an upper story of 
plastered logs. There was a careful apportionment of rations, but 
no suffering for lack of food. 

An incident of the winter was the expedition of Captain 
Randolph B. Marcy across the Uinta Mountains to New Mexico, 
with two guides and thirty-five volunteer companions, to secure 
needed animals. The story of his march is one of the most 
remarkable on record, the company pressing on, even after Indian 
guides refused to accompany them to what they said was certain 
death, living for days only on the meat supplied by half-starved 
mules, and beating a path through deep snow. This march con- 
tinued from November 27 to January 10, when, with the loss of 
only one man, they reached the valley of the Rio del Norte, where 
supplies were obtained from Fort Massachusetts. Captain Marcy 
started back on March 17, selecting a course which took him past 
Long's and Pike's Peaks. He reached Camp Scott on June 8, with 
about fifteen hundred horses and mules, escorted by five companies 
of infantry and mounted riflemen. 

During the winter Governor Cumming sent to Brigham Young 
a proclamation notifying him of the arrival of the new territorial 



500 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



officers, and assuring the people that he would resort to the mili- 
tary posse only in case of necessity. Judge Eckles held a session 
of the United States District Court at Camp Scott on December 30, 
and the grand jury of that court found indictments for treason, 
resting on Young's proclamation and Wells's instructions, against 
Young, Kimball, Wells, Taylor, Grant, Locksmith, Rockwell, 
Hickman, and many others, but of course no arrests were made. 

Meanwhile, at Washington, preparations were making to sus- 
tain the federal authority in Utah as soon as spring opened. 1 Con- 
gress made an appropriation, and authorized the enlistment of two 
regiments of volunteers; three thousand regular troops and two 
batteries were ordered to the territory, and General Scott was di- 
rected to sail for the Pacific coast with large powers. But Gen- 
eral Scott did not sail, the army contracts created a scandal, 2 and 
out of all this preparation for active hostilities came peace with- 
out the firing of a shot; out of all this open defiance and vilifi- 
cation of the federal administration by the Mormon church came 
abject surrender by the administration itself. 

1 For the correspondence concerning the camp during the winter of 1858, see Sen. 
Doc, 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II. 

2 Colonel Albert G. Brown, Jr., in his account of the Utah Expedition in the Atlantic 
Monthly for April, 1859, said : " To the shame of the administration these gigantic con- 
tracts, involving an amount of more than $6,000,000, were distributed with a view to 
influence votes in the House of Representatives upon the Lecompton Bill. Some of the 
lesser ones, such as those for furnishing mules, dragoon horses, and forage, were granted 
arbitrarily to relatives or friends of members who were wavering upon that question. 
The principal contract, that for the transportation of all the supplies, involving for the 
year 1858 the amount of $4,500,000, was granted, without advertisement or subdivision, 
to a firm in Western Missouri, whose members had distinguished themselves in the 
effort to make Kansas a slave state, and now contributed liberally to defray the election 
expenses of the Democratic party." 



CHAPTER XIV 



COLONEL KANE'S MISSION 

When Major Van Vliet returned from Utah to Washington 
with Young's defiant ultimatum, he was accompanied by J. M. 
Bernhisel, the territorial Delegate to Congress, who was allowed 
to retain his seat during the entire " war," a motion for his ex- 
pulsion, introduced soon after Congress met, being referred to a 
committee which never reported on it, the debate that arose only 
giving further proof of the ignorance of the lawmakers about 
Mormon history, Mormon government, and Mormon ambition. 

In Washington Bernhisel was soon in conference with Colonel 
T. L. Kane, that efficient ally of the Mormons, who had succeeded 
so well in deceiving President Fillmore. In his characteristically 
wily manner, Kane proposed himself to the President as a mediator 
between the federal authorities and the Mormon leaders. 1 At that 
early date Buchanan was not so ready for a compromise as he 
soon became, and the Cabinet did not entertain Kane's proposition 
with any enthusiasm. But Kane secured from the President two 
letters, dated December 3. 2 The first stated, in regard to Kane, 
" You furnish the strongest evidence of your desire to serve the 
Mormons by undertaking so laborious a trip," and that "nothing 
but pure philanthropy, and a strong desire to serve the Mormon 
people, could have dictated a course so much at war with your 

1 H. H. Bancroft (" History of Utah," p. 529) accepts the ridiculous Mormon asser- 
tion that Buchanan was compelled to change his policy toward the Mormons by unfavor- 
able comments " throughout the United States and throughout Europe." Stenhouse 
says (" Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 386) : "That the initiatory steps for the settlement 
of the Utah difficulties were made by the government, as is so constantly repeated by the 
Saints, is not true. The author, at the time of Colonel Kane's departure from New York 
for Utah, was on the staff of the New York Herald, and was conversant with the facts, 
and confidentially communicated them to Frederick Hudson, Esq., the distinguished 
manager of that great journal." 

2 Sen. Doc, 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II, pp. 162-163. 

501 



502 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



private interests." If Kane presented this credential to Young 
on his arrival in Salt Lake City, what a glorious laugh the two 
conspirators must have had over it ! The President went on to 
reiterate the views set forth in his last annual message, and to say : 
" I would not at the present moment, in view of the hostile atti- 
tude they have assumed against the United States, send any agent 
to visit them on behalf of the government." The second letter 
stated that Kane visited Utah from his own sense of duty, and 
commended him to all officers of the United States whom he 
might meet. 

Kane's method of procedure was, throughout, characteristic of 
the secret agent of such an organization as the Mormon church. 
He sailed from New York for San Francisco the first week in 
January, 1858, under the name of Dr. Osborn. As soon as he 
landed, he hurried to Southern California, and, joining the Mor- 
mons who had been called in from San Bernardino, he made the 
trip to Utah with them, arriving in Salt Lake City in February. 
On the evening of the day of his arrival he met the Presidency and 
the Twelve, and began an address to them as follows : " I come as 
ambassador from the Chief Executive of our nation, and am pre- 
pared and duly authorized to lay before you, most fully and defi- 
nitely, the feelings and views of the citizens of our common country 
and of the Executive toward you, relative to the present position 
of this territory, and relative to the army of the United States 
now upon your borders." This is the report of Kane's words 
made by Tullidge in his " Life of Brigham Young." How the 
statement agrees with Kane's letters from the President is appar- 
ent on its face. The only explanation in Kane's favor is that he 
had secret instructions which contradicted those that were written 
and published. Kane told the church officers that he wished to 
" enlist their sympathies for the poor soldiers who are now suffer- 
ing in the cold and snow of the mountains ! " An interview of half 
an hour with Young followed — too private in its character to be 
participated in even by the other heads of the church. An in- 
formal discussion ensued, the following extracts from which, on 
Mormon authority, illustrate Kane's sympathies and purpose : — 

" Did Dr. Bernhisel take his seat? " 

Kane — " Yes. He was opposed by the Arkansas member and a few others, 
but they were treated as fools by more sagacious members ; for, if the Delegate 



COLONEL KANE'S MISSION 



503 



had been refused his seat, it would have been tantamount to a declaration of 
war.'''' 

"I suppose they [the Cabinet] are united in putting down Utah? " 
Kane — "I think not." 1 

Kane was placed as a guest, still incognito, in the house of an 
elder, and, after a few days' rest, he set out for Camp Scott. His 
course on arriving there, on March 10, was again characteristic of 
the crafty emissary. Not even recognizing the presence of the 
military so far as to reply to a sentry's challenge, the latter fired 
on him, and he in turn broke his own weapon over the sentry's 
head. When seized, he asked to be taken to Governor Cumming, 
not to General Johnston. 2 " The compromise," explains Tullidge, 
"which Buchanan had to effect with the utmost delicacy, could 
only be through the new governor, and that, too, by his heading 
off the army sent to occupy Utah." A fancied insult from General 
Johnston due to an orderly's mistake led Kane to challenge the 
general to a duel ; but a meeting was prevented by an order from 
Judge Eckles to the marshal to arrest all concerned if his com- 
mand to the contrary was not obeyed. " Governor Cumming," 
continued Tullidge, " could do nothing less than espouse the cause 
of the ' ambassador ' who was there in the execution of a mission 
intrusted to him by the President of the United States." 3 

Kane did not make any mistake in his selection of the person 
to approach in camp. Judged by the results, and by his admissions 
in after years, the most charitable explanation of Cumming's course 
is that he was hoodwinked from the beginning by such masters in the 
art of deception as Kane and Young. A woman in Salt Lake City, 
writing to her sons in the East at the time, described the governor 
as in " appearance a very social, good-natured looking gentleman, a 
good specimen of an old country aristocrat, at ease in himself and 

1 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 203. 

2 Colonel Johnston was made a brigadier general that winter. 

3 Kane brought an impudent letter from Young, saying that he had learned that the 
United States troops were very destitute of provisions, and offering to send them beef 
cattle and flour. General Johnston replied to Kane that he had an abundance of pro- 
visions, and that, no matter what might be the needs of his army, he " would neither ask 
nor receive from President Young and his confederates any supplies while they contin- 
ued to be enemies of the government." Kane replied to this the next day, expressing a 
fear that " it must greatly prejudice the public interest to refuse Mr. Young's proposal 
in such a manner," and begging the general to reconsider the matter. No further notice 
seems to have been taken of the offer. 



504 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



at peace with all the world." 1 Such a man, whom the acts and 
proclamations and letters of Young did not incite to indignation, 
was in a very suitable frame of mind to be cajoled into adopting a 
policy which would give him the credit of bringing about peace, 
and at the same time place him at the head of the territorial 
affairs. 

In looking into the causes of what was, from this time, a back- 
ing down by both parties to this controversy, we find at Washing- 
ton that lack of an aggressive defence of the national interests 
confided to him by his office which became so much more evident 
in President Buchanan a few years later. Defied and reviled per- 
sonally by Young in the latter' s official communications, there was 
added reason to those expressed in the President's first message 
why this first rebellion, as he called it, " should be put down in 
such a manner that it shall be the last." But a wider question 
was looming up in Kansas, one in which the whole nation recog- 
nized a vital interest ; a bigger struggle attracted the attention of 
the leading members of the Cabinet. The Lecompton Constitu- 
tion was a matter of vastly more interest to every politician than 
the government of the sandy valley which the Mormons occupied 
in distant Utah. 

On the Mormon side, defiant as Young was, and sincere as was 
his declaration that he would leave the valley a desert before the 
advance of a hostile force, his way was not wholly clear. His Legion 
could not successfully oppose disciplined troops, and he knew it. 
The conviction of himself and his associates on the indictments for 
treason could be prevented before an unbiassed non-Mormon jury 
only by flight. Abjectly as his people obeyed him, — -so abjectly 
that they gave up all their gold and silver to him that winter in 
exchange for bank notes issued by a company of which he was 
president, — the necessity of a reiteration of the determination to 
rule by the plummet showed that rebellion was at least a possi- 
bility. 2 That Young realized his personal peril was shown by 

1 New York Herald, July 2, 1858. For personal recollections of Cumming, see 
Perry's " Reminiscences of Public Men," p. 290. What is said by Governor Perry of 
Cumming's Utah career is valueless. 

2 A long Utah letter to the New York Herald (which had been generally pro-Mor- 
mon in tone) dated Camp Scott, May 22, 1858, contained the following: "Some of the 
deceived followers of the latest false Prophet arrived at this post in a most deplorable 
condition. One mater familias had crossed the mountains during very severe weather 



COLONEL KANE'S MISSION 



505 



some "instructions and remarks " made by him in the Tabernacle 
just after Kane set out for Fort Bridger, and privately printed 
for the use of his fellow-leaders. He expressed the opinion that 
if Joseph Smith had "followed the revelations in him" (meaning 
the warnings of danger), he would have been among them still. 
" I do not know precisely," said Young, " in what manner the Lord 
will lead me, but were I thrown into the situation Joseph was, I 
would leave the people and go into the wilderness, and let them do 
the best they could. . . . We are in duty bound to preserve life — 
to preserve ourselves on earth — consequently we must use policy, 
and follow in the counsel given us." He pointed out the sure 
destruction that awaited them if they opened fire on the soldiers, 
and declared that he was going to a desert region in the territory 
which he had tried to have explored — "a desert region that no 
man knows anything about," with "places here and there in it 
where a few families could live," and the entire extent of which 
would provide homes for five hundred thousand people, if scattered 
about. In these circumstances " a way out " that would free the 
federal administration from an unpleasant complication, and leave 
Young still in practical control in Utah, was not an unpleasant 
prospect for either side. 

Kane having won Governor Gumming to his view of the situa- 
tion, and having created ill feeling between the governor and the 
chief military commander, the way was open for the next step. 
The plan was to have Governor Cumming enter Salt Lake Valley 
without any federal troops, and proceed to Salt Lake City under a 

in almost a state of nudity. Her dress consisted of a part of a single skirt, part of a 
man's shirt, and a portion of a jacket. Thus habited, without a shoe or a thread more, 
she had walked 157 miles in snow, the greater part of the way up to her knees, and car- 
ried in her arms a sucking babe less than six weeks old. The soldiers pulled off their 
clothes and gave them to the unfortunate woman. The absconding Saints who arrive 
here tell a great many stories about the condition and feeling of their brethren who still 
remain in the land of promise. . . . Thousands and thousands of persons, both men 
and women, are represented to be exceedingly desirous of not going South with the 
church, but are compelled to by fear of death or otherwise." 

Governor Cumming, in his report to Secretary Cass on the situation as he found it 
when he entered Salt Lake City, said that, learning that a number of persons desirous of 
leaving the territory " considered themselves to be unlawfully restrained of their liberty," 
he decided, even at the risk of offending the Mormons, to give public notice of his readi- 
ness to assist such persons. In consequence, 56 men, 38 women, and 71 children sought 
his protection in order to proceed to the States. " The large majority of these people," 
he explained, " are of English birth, and state that they leave the congregation from a 
desire to improve their circumstances and realize elsewhere more money for their labor." 



506 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Mormon escort of honor, which was to meet him when he came 
within a certain distance of that city. This he consented to do. 
Kane stayed in " Camp Eckles " until April, making one visit to 
the outskirts to hold a secret conference with the Mormons, and, 
doubtless, to arrange the details of the trip. 

On April 3 Governor Cumming informed General Johnston of 
his decision, and he set out two days later. General Johnston's 
view of the policy to be pursued toward the Mormons was 
expressed in a report to army headquarters, dated January 20 : — 

" Knowing how repugnant it would be to the policy or interest of the gov- 
ernment to do any act that would force these people into unpleasant relations 
with the federal government, I have, in conformity with the views also of the com- 
manding general, on all proper occasions manifested in my intercourse with them 
a spirit of conciliation. But I do not believe' that such consideration of them 
would be properly appreciated now, or rather would be wrongly interpreted ; and, 
in view of the treasonable temper and feeling now pervading the leaders and a 
greater portion of the Mormons, I think that neither the honor nor the dignity 
of the government will allow of the slightest concession being made to them.' 1 

Judge Eckles did not conceal his determination not to enter 
Salt Lake City until the flag of his country was waving there, 
holding it a shame that men should be detained there in subjection 
to such a despot as Brigham Young. 

Leaving camp accompanied only by Colonel Kane and two 
servants, Governor Cumming found his Mormon guard awaiting 
him a few miles distant. His own account of the trip and of his 
acts during the next three weeks of his stay in Mormondom may 
be found in a letter to General Johnston and a report to Secretary 
of State Cass. 1 As Echo Canon was supposed to be thoroughly 
fortified, and there was not positive assurance that a conflict might 
not yet take place, the governor was conducted through it by 
night. He says that he was " agreeably surprised" by the illumi- 
nations in his honor. Very probably he so accepted them, but the 
fires lighted along the sides and top of the canon were really 
intended to appear to him as the camp-fires of a big Mormon 
army. This deception was further kept up by the appearance of 
challenging parties at every turn, who demanded the password 
of the escort, and who, while the governor was detained, would 
hasten forward to a new station and go through the form of chal- 

1 For text, see Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," pp. 208-212. 



COLONEL KANE'S MISSION 



lenging again. Once he was made the object of an apparent 
attack, from which he was rescued by the timely arrival of officers 
of authority. 1 

The trip to Salt Lake City occupied a week, and on the 12th 
the governor entered the Mormon metropolis, escorted by the city 
officers and other persons of distinction in the community, and 
was assigned as a guest to W. C. Staines, an influential Mormon 
elder. There Young immediately called on him, and was received 
with friendly consideration. Asked by his host, when the head 
of the church took his leave, if Young appeared to be a tyrant, 
Governor Gumming replied : " No, sir. No tyrant ever had a head 
on his shoulders like Mr. Young. He is naturally a good man. 
I doubt whether many of your people sufficiently appreciate him 
as a leader." 2 This was the judgment of a federal officer after a 
few moments' conversation with the reviler of the government — 
and a month's coaching by Colonel Kane. 

Three days later, Governor Cumming officially notified General 
Johnston of his arrival, and stated that he was everywhere recog- 
nized as governor, and " universally greeted with such respectful 
attentions " as were due to his office. There was no mention of 
any advance of the troops, nor any censure of Mormon offenders, 
but the general was instructed to use his forces to recover stock 
alleged to have been stolen from the Mormons by Indians, and to 
punish the latter, and he was informed that Indian Agent Hurt 
(who had so recently escaped from Mormon clutches) was charged 
by W. H. Hooper, the Mormon who had acted as secretary of 
state during recent months, with having incited Indians to hos- 
tility, and should be investigated ! Verily, Colonel Kane's work 
was thoroughly performed. General Johnston replied, expressing 
gratification at the governor's reception, requesting to be informed 
when the Mormon force would be withdrawn from the route to 
Salt Lake City, and saying that he had inquired into Dr. Hurt's 
case, and had satisfied himself " that he has faithfully discharged 
his duty as agent, and that he has given none but good advice to 
the Indians." 

1 " In course of time Cumming discovered how the Mormon leaders had imposed 
upon him and amused themselves with his credulity, and to the last hour that he was in 
the Territory he felt annoyed at having been so absurdly deceived, and held Brigham 
responsible for the mortifying joke." — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 390. 

2 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 206. 



508 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



On the Sunday after 'his arrival Young introduced Governor 
Cumming to the people in the Tabernacle, and then a remarkable 
scene ensued. Stenhouse says that the proceedings were all arranged 
in advance. Cumming was acting the part of the vigilant defender 
of the laws, and at the same time as conciliator, doing what his 
authority would permit to keep the Mormon leaders free from the 
presence of troops and from the jurisdiction of federal judges. 
But he was not all-powerful in this respect. General Johnston 
had orders that would allow him to dispose of his forces without 
obedience to the governor, and the governor could not quash the 
indictments found by Judge Eckles's grand jury. Young's knowl- 
edge of this made him cautious in his reliance on Governor Cum- 
ming. Then, too, Young had his own people to deal with, and 
he would lose caste with them if he made a surrender which left 
Mormondom practically in federal control. 

When Governor Cumming was introduced to the congregation 
of nearly four thousand people he made a very conciliatory address, 
in which, however, according to his report to Secretary Cass, 1 he let 
them know that he had come to vindicate the national sovereignty, 
" and to exact an unconditional submission on their part to the dic- 
tates of the law " ; but informed them that they were entitled to 
trial by their peers, — intending to mean Mormon peers, — that he 
had no intention of stationing the army near their settlements, or 
of using a military posse until other means of arrest had failed. 
After this practical surrender of authority, the governor called for 
expressions of opinion from the audience, and he got them. That 
audience had been nurtured for years on the oratory of Young and 
Kimball and Grant, and had seen Judge Brocchus vilified by the 
head of the church in the same building ; and the responses to Gov- 
ernor Cumming's invitation were of a kind to make an Eastern 
Gentile quail, especially one like the innocent Cumming, who 
thought them " a people who habitually exercised great self-con- 
trol." One speaker went into a review of Mormon wrongs since 
the tarring of the prophet in Ohio, holding the federal govern- 
ment responsible, and naming as the crowning outrage the sending 
of a Missourian to govern them. This was too much for Cumming, 
and he called out, " I am a Georgian, sir, a Georgian." The con- 
gregation gave the governor the lie to his face, telling him that 

1 Ex. Doc. No. 67, 1st Session, 35th Congress. 



COLONEL KANE'S MISSION 



509 



they would not believe that he was their friend until he sent the 
soldiers back. " It was a perfect bedlam," says an eye-witness, 
" and gross personal remarks were made. One man said, ' You're 
nothing but an office seeker.' The governor replied that he ob- 
tained his appointment honorably and had not solicited it." 1 If 
all this was a piece of acting arranged by Young to show his flock 
that he was making no abject surrender, it was well done. 2 

Young's remarks on March 21 had been having their effect 
while Cumming was negotiating, and an exodus from the northern 
settlements was under way which only needed to be augmented by 
a movement from the valley to make good Young's declaration that 
they would leave their part of the territory a desert. No official 
order for this movement had been published, but whatever direc- 
tion was given was sufficient. Peace Commissioners Powell and 
McCullough, in a report to the Secretary of War dated July 3, 
1858, said on this subject: "We were informed by various (discon- 
tented) Mormons, who lived in the settlements north of Provo, that 
they had been forced to leave their homes and go to the southern 
part of the Territory. . . . We were also informed that at least 
one-third of the persons who had removed from their homes were 
compelled to do so. We were told that many were dissatisfied with 
the Mormon church, and would leave it whenever they could with 
safety to themselves. We are of opinion that the leaders of the 
Mormon church congregated the people in order to exercise more 
immediate control over them." Not only were houses deserted, 
but growing crops were left and heavier household articles aban- 
doned, and the roads leading to the south and through Salt 
Lake City were crowded day by day with loaded wagons, their 
owners — even the women, often shoeless — trudging along and 
driving their animals before them. These refugees were, a little 
later, joined by Young and most of his associates, and by a large 
part of the inhabitants of Salt Lake City itself. 

It was estimated by the army officers at the time that 25,000 

1 Coverdale's statement in Camp Scott letter, June 4, 1858, to New York Herald. 

2 " Brigham was seated beside the governor on the platform, and tried to control 
the unruly spirits. Governor Cumming may for the moment have been deceived by this 
apparent division among the Mormons, but three years later he told the author that it 
was all of a piece with the incidents of his passage through Echo Canon. In his char- 
acteristic brusque way he said: 'It was all humbug, sir, all humbug; but never mind; 
it is all over now. If it did them good, it did not hurt me.'" — "Rocky Mountain 
Saints," p. 393. 



5io 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



of a total population of 45,000 in the Territory, took part in this 
movement. When they abandoned their houses they left them 
tinder boxes which only needed the word of command, when the 
troops advanced, to begin a general conflagration. By June 1 the 
refugees were collected on the western shore of Utah Lake, fifty 
miles south of Salt Lake City. What a picture of discomfort and 
positive suffering this settlement presented can be partly imagined. 
The town of Provo near by could accommodate but a few of the 
new-comers, and for dwellings the rest had recourse to covered 
wagons, dugouts, cabins of logs, and shanties of boards — anything 
that offered any protection. There was a lack of food, and it was 
the old life of the plains again, without the daily variety presented 
when the trains were moving. 

In his report to Secretary Cass, dated May 2, Governor Gum- 
ming, after describing this exodus as a matter of great concern, 
said : — 

"I shall follow these people and try to rally them. Our military force could 
overwhelm most of these poor people, involving men, women, and children in a 
common fate ; but there are among the Mormons many brave men accustomed 
to arms and horses, men who could fight desperately as guerillas ; and, if the 
settlements are destroyed, will subject the country to an expensive and protracted 
war, without any compensating results. They will, I am sure, submit to 4 trial by 
their peers,' but they will not brook the idea of trial by 'juries 1 composed of £ team- 
sters and followers of the camp, 1 nor any army encamped in their cities or dense 
settlements." 

What kind of justice their idea of "trial by their peers " meant 
was disclosed in the judicial history of the next few years. 

This report, which also recited the insults the governor had 
received in the Tabernacle, was sent to Congress on June 10 by 
President Buchanan, with a special message, setting forth that he 
had reason to believe that " our difficulties with the territory have 
terminated, and the reign of the constitution and laws been restored," 
and saying that there was no longer any use of calling out the 
authorized regiments of volunteers. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE PEACE COMMISSION 

Governor Cumming's report of May 2 did not reach Washing- 
ton until June 9, but the President's volte-face had begun before that 
date, and when the situation in Utah was precisely as it was when 
he had assured Colonel Kane that he would send no agent to the 
Mormons while they continued their defiant attitude. Under date 
of April 6 he issued a proclamation, in which he recited the out- 
rages on the federal officers in Utah, the warlike attitude and acts 
of the Mormon force, which, he pointed out, constituted rebellion 
and treason ; declared that it was a grave mistake to suppose that 
the government would fail to bring them into submission ; stated 
that the land occupied by the Mormons belonged to the United 
States ; and disavowed any intention to interfere with their religion ; 
and then, to save bloodshed and avoid indiscriminate punishment 
where all were not equally guilty, he offered " a free and full par- 
don to all who will submit themselves to the just authority of the 
federal government." 

This proclamation was intrusted to two peace commissioners, 
L. W. Powell of Kentucky and Major Ben. McCullough of Texas. 
Powell had been governor of his state, and was then United States 
senator-elect. McCullough had seen service in Texas before the 
war with Mexico, and been a daring scout under Scott in the latter 
war. He was killed at the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, in 1862, 
in command of a Confederate corps. 

These commissioners were instructed by the Secretary of War 
to give the President's proclamation extensive circulation in Utah. 
Without entering into any treaty or engagements with the Mormons, 
they were to "bring those misguided people to their senses" by 
convincing them of the uselessness of resistance, and how much 
submission was to their interest. They might, in so doing, place 
themselves in communication with the Mormon leaders, and assure 

511 



512 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



them that the movement of the army had no reference to their 
religious tenets. The determination was expressed to see that the 
federal officers appointed for the territory were received and in- 
stalled, and that the laws were obeyed, and Colonel Kane was 
commended to them as likely to be of essential service. 

The commissioners set out from Fort Leavenworth on April 
25, travelling in ambulances, their party consisting of themselves, 
five soldiers, five armed teamsters, and a wagon master. They 
arrived at Camp Scott on May 29, the reinforcements for the 
troops following them. The publication of the President's proc- 
lamation was a great surprise to the military. " There was none 
of the bloodthirsty excitement in the camp which was reported in 
the States to have prevailed there," says Colonel Brown, "but 
there was a feeling of infinite chagrin, a consciousness that the 
expedition was only a pawn on Mr. Buchanan's political chess- 
board ; and reproaches against his folly were as frequent as they 
were vehement." 1 

The commissioners were not long in discovering the untrust- 
worthy character of any advices they might receive from Governor 
Cumming. In their report of June 1 to the Secretary of War, 
they mentioned his opinion that almost all the military organiza- 
tions of the territory had been disbanded, adding, "We fear that 
the leaders of the Mormon people have not given the governor 
correct information of affairs in the valley." They also declared 
it to be of the first importance that the army should advance into 
the valley before the Mormons could burn the grass or crops, and 
they gave General Johnston the warmest praise. 

The commissioners set out for Salt Lake City on June 2, 
Governor Cumming who had returned to Camp Scott with Colonel 
Kane following them. On reaching the city they found that 
Young and the other leaders were with the refugees at Provo. 
A committee of three Mormons expressed to the commissioners 
the wish of the people that they would have a conference with 
Young, and on the 10th Young, Kimball, Wells, and several of the 
Twelve arrived, and a meeting was arranged for the following day. 

There are two accounts of the ensuing conferences, the official 
reports of the commissioners, 2 which are largely statements of 

1 Atlantic Monthly, April, 1859. 

2 Sen. Doc, 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II, p. 167. 



THE PEACE COMMISSION 



513 



results, and a Mormon report in the journal kept by Wilford 
Woodruff. 1 At the first conference, the commissioners made a 
statement in line with the President's proclamation and with their 
instructions, offering pardon on submission, and declaring the pur- 
pose of the government to enforce submission by the employment 
of the whole military force of the nation, if necessary. Wood- 
ruff's "reflection" on this proposition was that the President 
found that Congress would not sustain him, and so was seeking 
a way of retreat. While the conference was in session, O. P. 
Rockwell entered and whispered to Young. The latter, address- 
ing Governor Cumming, asked, " Are you aware that those troops 
are on the move toward the city ? " The compliant governor re- 
plied, " It cannot be." 2 What followed Woodruff thus relates : — 

" 'Is Brother Dunbar present, 1 enquired Brigham. 
"'Yes, sir,' responded some one. What was coming now ? 
" ' Brother Dunbar, sing Zion.' The Scotch sqngster came forward and sang 
the soul-stirring lines by C. W. Penrose." 3 

Interpreted, this meant, " Stop that army or our peace confer- 
ence is ended." Woodruff adds : — 

"After the meeting, McCullough and Gov. Cumming took a stroll together. 
' What will you do with such a people,' asked the governor, with a mixture of ad- 
miration and concern. 'D n them, I would fight them if I had my way, 1 an- 
swered McCullough. 

" ' Fight them, would you? You might fight them, but you would never whip 
them. They would never know when they were whipped. 1 11 

At the second day's conference Brigham Young uttered his 
final defiance and then surrendered. Declaring that he had done 
nothing for which he desired the President's forgiveness, he satis- 
fied the pride of his followers with such declarations as these : — 

" I can take a few of the boys here, and, with the help of the Lord, can whip 
the whole of the United States. Boys, how do you feel? Are you afraid of the 

1 Quoted in Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 214. 

2 Governor Cumming on June 15 despatched a letter to General Johnston saying 
that he had denied the report of the advance of the army, and that the general was 
pledged not to advance until he had received communications from the peace commis- 
sioners and the governor. The general replied on the 19th that he did say he would 
not advance until he heard from the governor, but that this was not a pledge; that his 
orders from the President were to occupy the territory; that his supplies had arrived 
earlier than anticipated, and that circumstances required an advance at once. 

3 See p. 498, ante. 



514 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



United States? (Great demonstration among the brethren.) No. No. We 
are not afraid of man, nor of what he can do." 

" The United States are going to destruction as fast as they can go. If you 
do not believe it, gentlemen, you will soon see it to your sorrow." 

But here was the really important part of his remarks : " Now, 
let me say to you peace commissioners, we are willing those troops 
should come into our country, but not to stay in our city. They 
may pass through it, if needs be, but must not quarter less than 
forty miles from us." 

Impudent as was this declaration to the representatives of the 
government, it marked the end of the " war." The commissioners 
at once notified General Johnston that the Mormon leaders had 
agreed not to resist the execution of the laws in the territory, and 
to consent that the military and civil officers should discharge 
their duties. They suggested that the general issue a proclamation, 
assuring the people that the army would not trespass on the rights 
or property of peaceable citizens, and this the general did at once. 

The Mormon leaders, being relieved of the danger of a trial 
for treason, now stood in dread of two things, the quartering of 
the army among them, and a vigorous assault on the practice of 
polygamy. Judge Eckles's District Court had begun its spring 
term at Fort Bridger on April 5, and the judge had charged the 
grand jury very plainly in regard to plural marriages. On this 
subject he said : — 

"It cannot be concealed, gentlemen, that certain domestic arrangements 
exist in this territory destructive of the peace, good order, and morals of society 
— arrangements at variance with those of all enlightened and Christian commun- 
ities in the world ; and, sapping as they do the very foundation of all virtue, hon- 
esty, and morality, it is an imperative duty falling upon you as grand jurors 
diligently to inquire into this evil and make every effort to check its growth. . . . 
There is no law in this territory punishing polygamy, but there is one, however, 
for the punishment of adultery ; and all illegal intercourse between the sexes, if 
either party have a husband or wife living at the time, is adulterous and punish- 
able by indictment. The law was made to punish the lawless and disobedient, 
and society is entitled to the salutary effects of its execution." 

No indictments were found that spring for this offence, but the 
Mormons stood in great dread of continued efforts by the judge to 
enforce the law as he interpreted it. Of the nature of the real 
terms made with the Mormons, Colonel Brown says : — 



THE PEACE COMMISSION 



515 



" No assurances were given by the commissioners upon either of these sub- 
jects. They limited their action to tendering the President's pardon, and exhort- 
ing the Mormons to accept it. Outside the conferences, however, without the 
knowledge of the commissioners, assurances were given on both these subjects by 
the Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, which proved satisfactory to 
Brigham Young. The exact nature of their pledges will, perhaps, never be dis- 
closed ; but from subsequent confessions volunteered by the superintendent, who 
appears to have acted as the tool of the governor through the whole affair, it 
seems probable that they promised explicitly to exert their influence to quarter 
the army in Cache Valley, nearly one hundred miles north of Salt Lake City, and 
also to procure the removal of Judge Eckles. 1 ' 1 

Captain Marcy had reached Camp Scott on June 8, with his 
herd of horses and mules, and Colonel Hoffman with the first 
division of the supply train which left Fort Laramie on March 18 ; 
on the 10th Captain Hendrickson arrived with the remainder of the 
trains; and on the 13th the long-expected movement from Camp 
Scott to the Mormon city began. To the soldiers who had spent 
the winter inactive, except as regards their efforts to keep them- 
selves from freezing, the order to advance was a welcome one. 
Late as was the date, there had been a snowfall at Fort Bridger 
only three days before, and the streams were full of water. The 
column was prepared therefore for bridge-making when necessary. 
When the little army was well under way the scene in the valley 
through which ran Black's Fork was an interesting one. The 
white walls of Bridger's Fort formed a background, with the rem- 
nants of the camp in the shape of sod chimneys, tent poles, and so 
forth next in front, and, slowly leaving all this, the moving soldiers, 
the long wagon trains, the artillery carriages and caissons, and on 
either flank mounted Indians riding here and there, satisfying their 
curiosity with this first sight of a white man's army. 

The news that the Mormons had abandoned their idea of 
resistance reached the troops the second day after they had started, 
and they had nothing more exciting to interest them on the way 
than the scenery and the Mormon fortifications. Salt Lake City 
was reached on the 26th, and the march through it took place that 
day. To the soldiers, nothing was visible to indicate any abandon- 
ment of the hostile attitude of the Mormons, much less any wel- 

1 Atlantic Monthly, April, 1859. Young told the Mormons at Provo on June 27, 
1858 : " We have reason to believe that Colonel Kane, on his arrival at the frontier, tele- 
graphed to Washington, and that orders were immediately sent to stop the march of 
the army for ten days." — Journal of Discoicrses, Vol. VII, p. 57. 



5 i6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



come. Their leaders had returned to the camp at Provo, and the 
only civilians in the city were a few hundred who had, for special 
reasons, been granted permission to return. The only woman in 
the whole city was Mrs. Cumming. The Mormons had been 
ordered indoors early that morning by the guard ; every flag on a 
public building had been taken down ; every window was closed. 
The regimental bands and the creaking wagons alone disturbed the 
utter silence. The peace commissioners rode with General John- 
ston, and the whole force encamped on the river Jordan, just 
within the city limits. Two days later, owing to a lack of wood 
and pasturage there, they were moved about fifteen miles westward, 
near the foot of the mountains. Disregarding Young's expressed 
wishes, and any understanding he might have had with Governor 
Cumming, General Johnston selected Cedar Valley on Lake Utah 
for one of the three posts he was ordered to establish in the terri- 
tory, and there his camp was pitched on July 6. 

Governor Cumming prepared a proclamation to the inhabitants 
of the territory, announcing that all persons were pardoned who 
submitted to the law, and that peace was restored, and inviting the 
refugees to return to their homes. The governor and the peace 
commissioners made a trip to the Mormon camps, and addressed 
gatherings at Provo and Lehi. The governor bustled about 
everywhere, assuring every one that all the federal officers would 
"hold sacred the amnesty and pardon by the President of the 

United States, by G d, sir, yes/' and receiving from Young the 

sneering reply, " We know all about it, Governor." On July 4, no 
northward movement of the people having begun, Cumming told 
Young that he intended to publish his proclamation. 

"Do as you please," was the contemptuous reply; "to-morrow 
I shall get upon the tongue of my wagon, and tell the people that 
/am going home, and they can do as they please." 1 

Young did so, and that day the backward march of the people 
began. The real governor was the head of the church. 

1 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 226. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 

We may here interrupt the narrative of events subsequent to 
the restoration of peace in the territory, with the story of the most 
horrible massacre of white people by religious fanatics of their own 
race that has been recorded since that famous St. Bartholomew's 
night in Paris — the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. 
Committed on Friday, September n, 1857, — four days before the 
date of Young's proclamation forbidding the United States troops 
to enter the territory — it was a considerable time before more than 
vague rumors of the crime reached the Eastern states. No inquest 
or other investigation was held by Mormon authority, no person 
participating in the slaughter was arrested by a Mormon officer ; 
and, when officers of the federal government first visited the scene, 
in the spring of 1859, all that remained to tell the tale were human 
skulls and other bones lying where the wolves and coyotes had left 
them, with scraps of clothing caught here and there upon the vines 
and bushes. Dr. Charles Brewer, the assistant army surgeon who 
was sent with a detail to bury the remains in May, 1859, sa y s m 
his grewsome report : — 

" I reached a ravine fifty yards from the road, in which I found portions of 
the skeletons of many bodies, — skulls, bones, and matted hair, — most of which, 
on examination, I concluded to be those of men. Three hundred and fifty yards 
further on another assembly of human remains was found, which, by all appear- 
ance, had been left to decay upon the surface ; skulls and bones, most of which I 
believed to be those of women, some also of children, probably ranging from six 
to twelve years of age. Here, too, were found masses of women's hair, children's 
bonnets, such as are generally used upon the plains, and pieces of lace, muslin, 
calicoes, and other materials. Many of the skulls bore marks of violence, being 
pierced with bullet holes, or shattered by heavy blows, or cleft with some sharp- 
edged instrument. 1 ' 1 

1 Sen. Doc. No. 42, 1st Session, 36th Congress. 

517 



5i8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



More than seventeen years passed before officers of the 
United States succeeded in securing the needed evidence against 
any of the persons responsible for these wholesale murders, and a 
jury which would bring in a verdict of guilty. Then a single Mor- 
mon paid the penalty of his crime. He died asserting that he was 
the one victim surrendered by the Mormon church to appease the 
public demand for justice. The closest students of the Mountain 
Meadows Massacre and of Brigham Young's rule will always give 
the most credence to this statement of John D. Lee. Indeed, to 
acquit Young of responsibility for this crime, it would be necessary 
to prove that the sermons and addresses in the Journal of Dis- 
courses are forgeries. 

In the summer of 1857 a party was made up in Arkansas to 
cross the plains to Southern California by way of Utah, under 
direction of a Captain Fancher. 1 This party differed from most 
emigrant parties of the day both in character and equipment. It 
numbered some thirty families, — about 140 individuals, — men, 
women, and children. They were people of means, several of 
them travelling in private carriages, and their equipment included 
thirty horses and mules, and about six hundred head of cattle, when 
they arrived in Utah. Most of them seem to have been Metho- 
dists, and they had a preacher of that denomination with them. 
Prayers were held in camp every night and morning, and they 
never travelled on Sundays. They did not hurry on, as the gold- 
seekers were wont to do in those days, but made their trip one of 
pleasure, sparing themselves and their animals, and enjoying the 
beauties and novelties of the route. 2 

1 Stenhouse says that travelling the same route, and encamping near the Arkansans, 
was a company from Missouri who called themselves " Missouri Wildcats," and who 
were so boisterous that the Arkansans were warned not to travel with them to Utah. 
Whitney says that the two parties travelled several days apart after leaving Salt Lake 
City. No mention of a separate company of Missourians appears in the official and 
court reports of the massacre. 

2 Jacob Forney, in his official report, says that he made the most careful inquiry re- 
garding the conduct of the emigrants after they entered the territory, and could testify 
"that the company conducted themselves with propriety." In the years immediately 
following the massacre, when the Mormons were trying to attribute the crime to Indians, 
much was said about the party having poisoned a spring and caused the death of Indians 
and their cattle. Forney found that one ox did die near their camp, but that its death 
was caused by a poisonous weed. Whitney, the church historian, who of course acquits 
the church of any responsibility for the massacre, draws a very black picture of the emi- 
grants, saying, for instance, that at Cedar Creek " their customary proceeding of burning 
fences, whipping the heads off chickens, or shooting them in the streets or private door- 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 519 



Every emigrant train for California then expected to restock 
in Utah. The Mormons had profited by this traffic, and such 
a thing as non-intercourse with travellers in the way of trade was 
as yet unheard of. But Young was now defying the government, 
and his proclamation of September 15 had declared that " no per- 
son shall be allowed to pass or repass into or through or from this 
territory without a permit from the proper officer." To a con- 
stituency made up so largely of dishonest members, high and low, 
as Young himself conceded the Mormon body politic to be, the 
outfit of these travellers was very attractive. There was a motive, 
too, in inflicting punishment on them, merely because they were 
Arkansans, and the motive was this : — 

Parley P. Pratt was sent to explore a southern route from Utah 
to California in 1849. He reached San Francisco from Los 
Angeles in the summer of 185 1, remaining there until June, 1855. 
He was a fanatical defender of polygamy after its open proclama- 
tion, challenging debate on the subject in San Francisco, and issu- 
ing circulars calling on the people to repent as " the Kingdom of 
God has come nigh unto you." While in San Francisco, Pratt 
induced the wife of Hector H. McLean, a custom-house official, 
the mother of three children, to accept the Mormon faith and to 
elope with him to Utah as his ninth wife. The children were sent 
to her parents in Louisiana by their father, and there she some- 
time later obtained them, after pretending that she had abandoned 
the Mormon belief. When McLean learned of this he went East, 
and traced his wife and Pratt to Houston, Texas, and thence to 
Fort Gibson, near Van Buren, Arkansas. There he had Pratt 
arrested, but there seemed to be no law under which he could be 
held. As soon as Pratt was released, he left the place on horse- 
back. McLean, who had found letters from Pratt to his wife at 
Fort Gibson which increased his feeling against the man, 1 followed 
him on horseback for eight miles, and then, overtaking him, shot 
him so that he died in two hours. 2 It was in accordance with 

yards, to the extreme danger of the inhabitants, was continued. One of them, a bluster- 
ing fellow riding a gray horse, flourished his pistol in the face of the wife of one of the 
citizens, all the time making insulting proposals and uttering profane threats." — " His- 
tory of Utah," Vol. I, p. 696. 

1 Van Buren Intelligencer, May 15, 1 85 7. 

2 See the story in the New York Times of May 28, 1857, copied from the St. Louis 
Democrat and St. Louis Republican. 



520 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Mormon policy to hold every Arkansan accountable for Pratt's 
death, just as every Missourian was hated because of the expulsion 
of the church from that state. 

When the company pitched camp on the river Jordan their 
food supplies were nearly exhausted, and their draught animals 
needed rest and a chance to recuperate. They knew nothing of 
the disturbed relations between the Mormons and the government 
when they set out, and they were astonished now to be told that 
they must break camp and move on southward. But they obeyed. 
At American Fork, the next settlement, they offered some of their 
worn-out animals in exchange for fresh ones, and visited the town 
to buy provisions. There was but one answer — nothing to sell. 
Southward they continued, through Provo, Springville, Payson, 
Salt Creek, and Fillmore, at all settlements making the same effort 
to purchase the food of which they stood in need, and at all receiv- 
ing the same reply. 

So much were their supplies now reduced that they hastened 
on until Corn Creek was reached ; there they did obtain a little 
relief, some Indians selling them about thirty bushels of corn. But 
at Beaver, a larger place, non-intercourse was again proclaimed, 
and at Parowan, through which led the road built by the general 
government, they were forbidden to pass over this directly through 
the town, and the local mill would not even grind their own corn. 
At Cedar Creek, one of the largest southern settlements, they 
were allowed to buy fifty bushels of wheat, and to have it and their 
corn ground at John D. Lee's mill. After a day's delay they 
started on, but so worn out were their animals that it took them 
three days to reach Iron Creek, twenty miles beyond, and two 
more days to reach Mountain Meadows, fifteen miles farther 
south. 

These "meadows" are a valley, 350 miles south of Salt Lake 
City, about five miles long by one wide. They are surrounded by 
mountains, and narrow at the lower end to a width of 400 yards, 
where a gap leads out to the desert. A large spring near this 
gap made that spot a natural resting-place, and there the emi- 
grants pitched their camp. Had they been in any way suspicious 
of Indian treachery they would not have stopped there, because, 
from the elevations on either side, they were subject to rifle fire. 
Their anxiety, however, was not about the Indians, whom they had 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 



521 



found friendly, but about the problem of making the trip of seventy- 
days to San Bernardino, across a desert country, with their worn- 
out animals and their scant supplies. Had Mormon cruelty taken 
only the form of withholding provisions and forage from this com- 
pany, its effect would have satisfied their most evil wishers. 

On the morning of Monday, September 7, still unsuspicious of 
any form of danger, their camp was suddenly fired upon by Indians, 
(and probably by some white men disguised as Indians). Seven of 
the emigrants were killed in this attack and sixteen were wounded. 
Unexpected as was this manifestation of hostility, the company 
was too well organized to be thrown into a panic. The fire was 
returned, and one Indian was killed, and two chiefs fatally wounded. 
The wagons were corralled at once as a sort of fortification, and 
the wheels were chained together. In the centre of this corral 
a rifle pit was dug, large enough to hold all their people, and in 
this way they were protected from shots fired at them from either 
side of the valley. In this little fort they successfully defended 
themselves during that and the ensuing three days. Not doubting 
that Indians were their only assailants, two of their number suc- 
ceeded in escaping from the camp on a mission to Cedar City to 
ask for assistance. These messengers were met by three Mor- 
mons, who shot one of them dead, and wounded the other; the 
latter seems to have made his way back to the camp. 

The Arkansans soon suffered for water, as the spring was a 
hundred yards distant. Two of them during one day made a dash, 
carrying buckets, and got back with them safely, under a heavy 
fire. 1 

With some reinforcements from the south, the Indians now 
numbered about four hundred. They shot down some seventy head 
of the emigrants' cattle, and on Wednesday evening made another 
attack in force on the camp, but were repulsed. Still another at- 
tack the next morning had the same result. This determined resist- 
ance upset the plans of the Mormons who had instigated the Indian 
attacks. They had expected that the travellers would be overcome 
in the first surprise, and that their butchery would easily be 

1 Lee denies positively a story that the Mormons shot two little girls who were 
dressed in white and sent out for water. He says that when the Arkansans saw a white 
man in the valley (Lee himself) they ran up a white flag and sent two little boys to talk 
with him; that he refused to see them, as he was then awaiting orders, and that he kept 
the Indians from shooting them. " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 231. 



522 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



accounted for as the result of an Indian raid on their camp. But 
they were not to be balked of their object. To save themselves 
from the loss of life that would be entailed by a charge oh the 
Arkansans' defences, they resorted to a scheme of the most delib- 
erate treachery. 

On Friday, the nth, a Mormon named William Bateman was 
sent forward with a flag of truce. The other undisguised Mor- 
mons remained in concealment, and the Indians had been in- 
structed to keep entirely out of sight. The beleaguered company 
were delighted to see a white man, and at once sent one of their 
number to meet him. Their ammunition was almost exhausted, 
their dead were unburied in their midst, and their situation was 
desperate. Bateman, following out his instructions, told the repre- 
sentative of the emigrants that the Mormons had come to their assist- 
ance, and that, if they would place themselves in the white men's 
hands and follow directions, they would be conducted in safety to 
Cedar City, there to await a proper opportunity for proceeding 
on their journey. 1 This plan was agreed to without any delay, 
and John D. Lee was directed by John M. Higbee, major of the 
Iron Militia, and chief in command of the Mormon party, to go to 
the camp to see that the plot agreed upon was carried out, Samuel 
McMurdy and Samuel Knight following him with two wagons 
which were a part of the necessary equipment. 

Never had a man been called upon to perform a more das- 
tardly part than that which was assigned to Lee. Entering the 
camp of the beleaguered people as their friend, he was to induce 
them to abandon their defences, give up all their weapons, sepa- 
rate the adults from the children and wounded, who were to 
be placed in the wagons, and then, at a given signal, every one of 
the party was to be killed by the white men who walked by their 
sides as their protectors. Lee draws a picture of his feelings on 
entering the camp which ought to be correct, even if circumstances 
lead one to attribute it to the pen of a man who naturally wished 
to find some extenuation for himself : " I doubt the power of man 
being equal to even imagine how wretched I felt. No language 
can describe my feelings. My position was painful, trying, and 
awful ; my brain seemed to be on fire ; my nerves were for a 
moment unstrung; humanity was overpowering as I thought of 

1 This account follows Lee's confession, " Mormonism Unveiled," p. 236 ff. 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 



523 



the cruel, unmanly part that I was acting. Tears of bitter anguish 
fell in streams from my eyes ; my tongue refused its office ; my 
faculties were dormant, stupefied and deadened by grief. I 
wished that the earth would open and swallow me where I stood." 

When Lee entered the camp all the people, men, women, and 
children, gathered around him, some delighted over the hope of 
deliverance, while others showed distrust of his intentions. Their 
position was so strong that they felt some hesitation in abandoning 
it, and Lee says that, if their ammunition had not been so nearly 
exhausted, they would never have surrendered. But their hesita- 
tion was soon overcome, and the carrying out of the plot 
proceeded. 

All their arms, the wounded, and the smallest children were 
placed in the two wagons. As soon as these were loaded, a mes- 
senger from Higbee, named McFarland, rode up with a message 
that everything should be hastened, as he feared he could not hold 
back the Indians. The wagons were then started at once toward 
Cedar City, Lee and the two drivers accompanying them, and the 
others of the party set out on foot for the place where the Mormon 
troops were awaiting them, some two hundred yards distant. First 
went McFarland on horseback, then the women and larger chil- 
dren, and then the men. When, in this order, they came to the 
place where the Mormons were stationed, the men of the party 
cheered the latter as their deliverers. 

As the wagons passed out of sight over an elevation, the march 
of the rest of the party was resumed. The women and larger chil- 
dren walked ahead, then came the men in single file, an armed 
Mormon walking by the side of each Arkansan. This gave the ap- 
pearance of the best possible protection. When they had advanced 
far enough to bring the women and children into the midst of a 
company of Indians concealed in a growth of cedars, the agreed 
signal — the words, " Do your duty " — was given. As these words 
were spoken, each Mormon turned and shot the Arkansan who was 
walking by his side, and Indians and other Mormons attacked the 
women and children who were walking ahead, while Lee and his 
two companions killed the wounded and the older of the children 
who were in the wagons. 

The work of killing the men was performed so effectually that 
only two or three of them escaped, and these were overtaken and 



524 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



killed soon after. 1 Indeed, only the nervousness natural to men 
who were assigned to perform so horrible a task could prevent the 
murderers from shooting dead the unarmed men walking by their 
sides. With the women and children it was different. Instead of 
being shot down without warning, they first heard the shots that 
killed their only protectors, and then beheld the Indians rushing 
on them with their usual whoops, brandishing tomahawks, knives, 
and guns. There were cries for mercy, mothers' pleas for children's 
lives, and maidens' appeals to manly honor ; but all in vain. It 
was not necessary to use firearms ; indeed, they would have endan- 
gered the assailants themselves. The tomahawk and the knife 
sufficed, and in the space of a few moments every woman and older 
child was a corpse. 

When Lee and the men in charge of the two wagons heard the 
firing, they halted at once, as this was the signal agreed on for 
them to perform their part. McMurdy's wagon, containing the 
sick and wounded and the little children, was in advance, Knight's, 
with a few passengers and the weapons, following. We have three 
accounts of what happened when the signal was given, Lee's own, 
and the testimony of the other two at Lee's trial. Lee says that 
McMurdy at once went up to Knight's wagon, and, raising his rifle 
and saying, " O Lord my God, receive their spirits ; it is for Thy 
Kingdom I do this," fired, killing two men with the first shot. Lee 
admits that he intended to do his part of the killing, but says that 
in his excitement his pistol went off prematurely and narrowly es- 
caped wounding McMurdy; that Knight then shot one man, and 
with the butt of his gun brained a little boy who had run up to him, 
and that the Indians then came up and finished killing all the sick 
and wounded. McMurdy testified that Lee killed the first person 
in his wagon — a woman — and also shot two or three others. 
When asked if he himself killed any one that day, McMurdy re- 
plied, " I believe I am not upon trial. I don't wish to answer." 

1 This is Judge Cradlebaugh's and Lee's statement. Lee said he could have given 
the details of their pursuit and capture if he had had time. An affidavit by James Lynch, 
who accompanied Superintendent Forney to the Meadows on his first trip there in March- 
1859 (printed in Sen. Doc. No. 42), says that one of the three, who was not killed on 
the spot, " was followed by five Mormons who, through promises of safety, etc., prevailed 
upon him to return to Mountain Meadows, where they inhumanly butchered him, laugh- 
ing at and disregarding his loud and repeated cries for mercy, as witnessed and described 
by Ira Hatch, one of the five. The object of killing this man was to leave no witness 
competent to give testimony in a court of justice but God.'' 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 525 

Knight testified that he saw Lee strike down a woman with his gun 
or a club, denying that he himself took any part in the slaughter. 
Nephi Johnson, another witness at Lee's second trial, testified that 
he saw Lee and an Indian pull a man out of one of the wagons, 
and he thought Lee cut the man's throat. 

The only persons spared in this whole company were seventeen 
children, varying in age from two months to seven years. They 
were given to Mormon families in southern Utah — "sold out," 
says Forney in his report, "to different persons in Cedar City, 
Harmony, and Painter Creek. Bills are now in my possession from 
different individuals asking payment from the government. I can- 
not condescend to become the medium of even transmitting such 
claims to the department." The government directed Forney in 
1858 to collect these children, and he did so. Congress in 1859 a P _ 
propriated $10,000 to defray the expense of returning them to their 
friends in Arkansas, and on June 27 of that year fifteen of them 
(two boys being retained as government witnesses) set out for the 
East from Salt Lake City in charge of a company of United States 
dragoons and five women attendants. Judge Cradlebaugh quotes 
one of these children, a boy less than nine years old, as saying in 
his presence, when they were brought to Salt Lake City, " Oh, I 
wish I was a man. I know what I would do. I would shoot John D. 
Lee. I saw him shoot my mother." 

The total number in the Arkansas party is not exactly known. 
The victims numbered more than 120. Jacob Hamblin testified 
at the Lee trial that, the following spring, he and his man buried 
" 120 odd " skulls, counting them as they gathered them up. 

A few young women, in the confusion of the Indian attack, 
concealed themselves, but they were soon found. Hamblin testi- 
fied at Lee's second trial that Lee, in a long conversation with 
him, soon after the massacre, told him that, when he rejoined the 
Mormon troops, an Indian chief brought to him two girls from 
thirteen to fifteen years old, whom he had found hiding in a 
thicket, and asked what should be done with them, as they were 
pretty and he wanted to save them. Lee replied that " according 
to the orders he had, they were too old and too big to let go." 
Then by Lee's direction the chief shot one of them, and Lee 
threw the other down and cut her throat. Hamblin said that an 
Indian boy conducted him to the place where the girls' bodies lay, 



526 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



a long way from the rest, up a ravine, unburied and with their 
throats cut. One of the little children saved from the massacre 
was taken home by Hamblin, and she said the murdered girls were 
her sisters. Richard F. Burton, who visited Utah in i860, men- 
tions, as one of the current stories in connection with the massacre, 
that, when a girl of sixteen knelt before one of the Mormons and 
prayed for mercy, he led her into the thicket, violated her, and 
then cut her throat. 1 

As soon as the slaughter was completed the plundering began. 
Beside their wagons, horses, and cattle, 2 they had a great deal of 
other valuable property, the whole being estimated by Judge 
Cradlebaugh at from $60,000 to $70,000. When Lee got back 
to the main party, the searching of the bodies of the men for 
valuables began. "I did hold the hat awhile," he confesses, "but 
I got so sick that I had to give it to some other person." He says 
there were more than five hundred head of cattle, a large number 
of which the Indians killed or drove away, while Klingensmith, 
Haight, and Higbee, leaders in the enterprise, drove others to 
Salt Lake City and sold them. The horses and mules were 
divided in the same way. The Indians (and probably their white 
comrades) had made quick work with the effects of the women. 
Their bodies, young and old, were stripped naked, and left, objects 
of the ribald jests of their murderers. Lee says that in one 
place he counted the bodies of ten children less than sixteen 
years old. 

When the Mormons had finished rifling the dead, all were 
called together and admonished by their chiefs to keep the 
massacre a secret from the whole world, not even letting their 
wives know of it, and all took the most solemn oath to stand 
by one another and declare that the killing was the work of 
Indians. Most of the party camped that night on the Meadows, 
but Lee and Higbee passed the night at Jacob Hamblin's ranch. 

In the morning the Mormons went back to bury the dead. All 
these lay naked, " making the scene," says Lee, " one of the most 
loathsome and ghastly that can be imagined." The bodies were 

1 "City of the Saints," p. 412. 

2 Superintendent Forney, in his report of March, 1859, said: "Facts in my posses- 
sion warrant me in estimating that there was distributed a few days after the massacre, 
among the leading church dignitaries, $30,000 worth of property. It is presumable they 
also had some money." 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 527 



piled up in heaps in little depressions, and a pretence was made of 
covering them with dirt ; but the ground was hard and their mur- 
derers had few tools, and as a consequence the wild beasts soon 
unearthed them, and the next spring the bones were scattered over 
the surface. 

This work finished, the party, who had been joined during the 
night by Colonel Dame, Judge Lewis, Isaac C. Haight, and others 
of influence, held another council, at which God was thanked for 
delivering their enemies into their hands ; another oath of secrecy 
was taken, and all voted that any person who divulged the story of 
the massacre should suffer death, but that Brigham Young should 
be informed of it. It was also voted, according to Lee, that Bishop 
Klingensmith should take charge of the plunder for the benefit of 
the church. 

The story of this slaughter, to this point, except in minor par- 
ticulars noted, is undisputed. No Mormon now denies that the 
emigrants were killed, or that Mormons participated largely in the 
slaughter. What the church authorities have sought to establish 
has been their own ignorance of it in advance, and their condem- 
nation of it later. In examining this question we have, to assist 
us, the knowledge of the kind of government that Young had 
established over his people — his practical power of life and 
death ; the fact that the Arkansans were passing south from Salt 
Lake City, and that their movements had been known to Young 
from the start and their treatment been subject to his direction ; 
the failure of Young to make any effort to have the murderers 
punished, when a " crook of his finger " would have given them 
up to justice ; the coincidence of the massacre with Young's threat 
to Captain Van Vliet, uttered on September 9, " If the issue con- 
tinues, you may tell the government to stop all emigration across 
the continent, for the Indians will kill all who attempt it " ; Young's 
failure to mention this " Indian outrage " in his report as superin- 
tendent of Indian affairs, and the silence of the Mormon press on 
the subject. 1 If we accept Lee's plausible theory that, at his 
second trial, the church gave him up as a sop to justice, and 
loosened the tongues of witnesses against him, this makes that 

1 H. H. Bancroft, in his " Utah," as usual, defends the Mormon church against the 
charge of responsibility for the massacre, and calls Judge Cradlebaugh's charge to the 
grand jury a slur that the evidence did not excuse. 



528 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



part of the testimony in confirmation of Lee's statement, elicited 
from them, all the stronger. 

Let us recall that Lee himself had been an active member of 
the church for nearly forty years, following it from Missouri to 
Utah, travelling penniless as a missionary at the bidding of his 
superiors, becoming a polygamist before he left Nauvoo, accepting 
in Utah the view that " Brigham spoke by direction of the God 
of heaven," and saying, as he stood by his coffin looking into the 
rifles of his executioners, " I believe in the Gospel that was taught 
in its purity by Joseph Smith in former days." How much Young 
trusted him is seen in the fact that, by Young's direction, he 
located the southern towns of Provo, Fillmore, Parowan, etc., was 
appointed captain of militia at Cedar City, was president of civil 
affairs at Harmony, probate judge of the county (before and after 
the massacre), a delegate to the convention which framed the con- 
stitution of the State of Deseret, a member of the territorial legis- 
lature (after the massacre), and " Indian farmer " of the district 
including the Meadows when the massacre occurred. 

Lee's account of the steps leading up to the massacre and of 
what followed is, in brief, that, about ten days before it occurred, 
General George A. Smith, one of the Twelve, called on him at 
Washington City, and, in the course of their conversation, asked, 
" Suppose an emigrant train should come along through this south- 
ern country, making threats against our people and bragging of 
the part they took in helping kill our prophet, what do you think 
the brethren would do with them ? " Lee replied : " You know the 
brethren are now under the influence of the ' Reformation,' and 
are still red-hot for the Gospel. The brethren believe the govern- 
ment wishes to destroy them. I really believe that any train of emi- 
grants that may come through here will be attacked and probably 
all destroyed. Unless emigrants have a pass from Brigham 
Young or some one in authority, they will certainly never get 
j safely through this country." Smith said that Major Haight had 
given him the same assurance. It was Lee's belief that Smith 
had been sent south in advance of the emigrants to prepare for 
what followed. 

Two days before the first attack on the camp, Lee was sum- 
moned to Cedar City by Isaac Haight, president of that Stake, 
second only to Colonel Dame in church authority in southern 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 



529 



Utah, and a lieutenant colonel in the militia under Dame. To 
make their conference perfectly secret, they took some blankets 
and passed the night in an old iron works. There Haight told Lee 
a long story about Captain Fancher's party, charging them with 
abusing the Mormons, burning fences, poisoning water, threaten- 
ing to kill Brigham Young and all the apostles, etc. He said 
that unless preventive measures were taken, the whole Mormon 
population were likely to be butchered by troops which these people 
would bring back from California. Lee says that he believed all 
this. He was also told that, at a council held that day, it had been 
decided to arm the Indians and " have them give the emigrants a 
brush, and, if they killed part or all, so much the better." When 
asked who authorized this, Haight replied, " It is the will of all in 
authority," and Lee was told that he was to carry out the order. 
The intention then was to have the Indians do the killing without 
any white assistance. On his way home Lee met a large bodv of 
Indians who said they were ordered by Haight, Higbee, and Bishop 
Klingensmith, to kill and rob the emigrants, and wanted Lee to 
lead them. He told them to camp near the emigrants and wait 
for him ; but they made the attack, as described, early Monday 
morning, without capturing the camp, and drove the whites into 
an intrenchment from which they could not dislodge them. Hence 
the change of plan. 

During the early part of the operations, Lee says, a messenger 
had been sent to Brigham Young for orders. On Thursday even- 
ing two or three wagon loads of Mormons, all armed, arrived at Lee's 
camp in the Meadows, the party including Major Higbee of the 
Iron Militia, Bishop Klingensmith, and many members of the High 
Council. When all were assembled, Major Higbee reported that 
Haight's orders were that " all the emigrants must be put out of 
the way " ; that they had no pass (Young could have given them 
one); that they were really a part of Johnston's army, and, if allowed 
to proceed to California, they would bring destruction on all the 
settlements in Utah. All knelt in prayer, after which Higbee gave 
Lee a paper ordering the destruction of all who could talk. After 
further prayers, Higbee said to Lee, " Brother Lee, I am ordered 
by President Haight to inform you that you shall receive a crown 
of celestial glory for your faithfulness, and your eternal joy shall 
be complete." Lee says that he was " much shaken " by this offer, 

2M 



530 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



because of his complete faith in the power of the priesthood to 
fulfil such promises. The outcome of the conference was the 
adoption of the plan of treachery that was so successfully carried 
out on Friday morning. The council had lasted so long that the 
party merely had time for breakfast before Bateman set out for the 
camp with his white flag. 1 

Several days after the massacre, Haight told Lee that the mes- 
senger sent to Young for instructions had returned with orders to 
let the emigrants pass in safety, and that he (Haight) had coun- 
termanded the order for the massacre, but his messenger "did not 
go to the Meadows at all." All parties were evidently beginning 
to realize the seriousness of their crime. Lee was then directed 
by the council to go to Young with a verbal report, Haight again 
promising him a celestial reward if he would implicate no more of 
the brethren than necessary in his talk with Young. 2 On reaching 
Salt Lake City, Lee gave Young the full particulars of the mas- 
sacre, step by step. Young remarked, " Isaac [Haight] has sent 
me word that, if they had killed every man, woman, and child in 
the outfit, there would not have been a drop of innocent blood shed 
by the brethren ; for they were a set of murderers, robbers, and 
thieves." 

When the tale was finished, Young said : " This is the most 
unfortunate affair that ever befell the church. I am afraid of 
treachery among the brethren who were there. If any one tells 

1 Bishop Klingensmith, one of the indicted, in whose case the district attorney 
entered a nolle prosequi in order that he might be a witness at Lee's first trial, said in 
his testimony : " Coming home the day following their [emigrants'] departure from Cedar 
City, met Ira Allen four miles beyond the place where they had spoken to Lee. Allen 
said, 'The die is cast, the doom of the emigrants is sealed.' " (This was in reference to a 
meeting in Parowan, when the destruction of the emigrants had been decided on.) " He 
said John D. Lee had received orders from headquarters at Parowan to take men and 
go, and Joel White would be wanted to go to Pinto Creek and revoke the order to suffer 
the emigrants to pass. The third day after, Haight came to McFarland's house and told 
witness and others that orders had come in from camp last night. Things hadn't gone 
along as had been expected, and reinforcements were wanted. Haight then went to 
Parowan to get instructions, and received orders from Dame to decoy the emigrants out 
and spare nothing but the small children who could not tell the tale." In an affidavit 
made by this Bishop in April, 1 871, he said : " I do not know whether said ' headquarters ' 
meant the spiritual headquarters at Parowan, or the headquarters of the commander-in- 
chief at Salt Lake City." (Affidavit in full in " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 439.) 

2 " At that time I believed everything he said, and I fully expected to receive the 
celestial reward that he promised me. But now [after his conviction] I say, 4 Damn 
all such celestial rewards as I am to get for what I did on that fatal day.' " — " Mor- 
monism Unveiled," p. 251. 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 



531 



this thing so that it will become public, it will work us great injury. 
I want you to understand now that you are never to tell this again, 
not even to Heber C. Kimball. It must be kept a secret among 
ourselves. When you get home, I want you to sit down and write 
a long letter, and give me an account of the affair, charging it to 
the Indians. You sign the letter as farmer to the Indians, and 
direct it to me as Indian agent. I can then make use of such a 
letter to keep off all damaging and troublesome inquirers." Lee 
did so, and his letter was put in evidence at his trial. 

Lee says that Young then dismissed him for the day, directing 
him to call again the next morning, and that Young then said to 
him : " I have made that matter a subject of prayer. I went right 
to God with it, and asked him to take the horrid vision from my 
sight if it was a righteous thing that my people had done in killing 
those people at the Mountain Meadows. God answered me, and 
at once the vision was removed. I have evidence from God that 
he has overruled it all for good, and the action was a righteous one 
and well intended." 1 

When Lee was in Salt Lake City as a member of the constitu- 
tional convention, the next winter, Young treated him, at his house 
and elsewhere, with all the friendliness of old. No one conver- 
sant with the extent of Young's authority will doubt the correct- 
ness of Lee's statement that " if Brigham Young had wanted one 
man or fifty men or five hundred men arrested, all he would have 
had to do would be to say so, and they would have been arrested 
instantly. There was no escape for them if he ordered their arrest. 
Every man who knows anything of affairs in Utah at that time 
knows this is so." 

At the second trial of Lee a deposition by Brigham Young was 
read, Young pleading ill health as an excuse for not taking the 
stand. He admitted that " counsel and advice were given to the 
citizens not to sell grain to the emigrants for their stock," but as- 
serted that this did not include food for the parties themselves. 
He also admitted that Lee called on him and began telling the 
story of the massacre, but asserted that he directed him to stop, as 
he did not want his feelings harrowed up with a recital of these 
details. He gave as an excuse for not bringing the guilty to jus- 

1 For Lee's account of his interview with Young, see " Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 
252-254. 



532 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



tice, or at least making an investigation, the fact that a new gov- 
ernor was on his way, and he did not know how soon he would 
arrive. As Young himself was keeping this governor out by- 
armed force, and declaring that he alone should fill that place, the 
value of his excuse can be easily estimated. Hamblin, at Lee's 
trial, testified that he told Brigham Young and George A. Smith 
" everything I could " about the massacre, and that Young said to 
him, " As soon as we can get a court of justice we will ferret this 
thing out, but till then don't say anything about it." 

Both Knight and McMurphy testified that they took their 
teams to Mountain Meadows under compulsion. Nephi Johnson, 
another participant, when asked whether he acted under compul- 
sion, replied, " I didn't consider it safe for me to object," and when 
compelled to answer the question whether any person had ever 
been injured for not obeying such orders, he replied, "Yes, sir, 
they had." 

Some letters published in the Corinne (Utah) Reporter, in the 
early seventies, signed "Argus," directly accused Young of re- 
sponsibility for this massacre. Stenhouse discovered that the 
author had been for thirty years a Mormon, a high priest in the 
church, a holder of responsible civil positions in the territory, and 
he assured Stenhouse that "before a federal court of justice, where 
he could be protected, he was prepared to give the evidence of all 
that he asserted." "Argus" declared that when the Arkansans 
set out southward from the Jordan, a courier preceded them carry- 
ing Young's orders for non-intercourse ; that they were directed to 
go around Parowan because it was feared that the military prepa- 
rations at that place, Colonel Dame's headquarters, might arouse 
their suspicion ; and he points out that the troops who killed the 
emigrants were called out and prepared for field operations, just 
as the territorial law directed, and were subject to the orders of 
Young, their commander-in-chief. 

Not until the so-called Poland Bill of 1874 became a law was 
any one connected with the Mountain Meadows Massacre even in- 
dicted. Then the grand jury, under direction of Judge Boreman, 
of the Second Judicial District of Utah, found indictments against 
Lee, Dame, Haight, Higbee, Klingensmith, and others. Lee, who 
had remained hidden for some years in the canon of the Colorado, 1 

1 Inman's "Great Salt Lake Trail," p. 141. 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 



533 



was reported to be in south Utah at the time, and Deputy United 
States Marshal Stokes, to whom the warrant for his arrest was 
given, set out to find him. Stokes was told that Lee had gone 
back to his hiding-place, but one of his assistants located the 
accused in the town of Panguitch, and there they found him con- 
cealed in a log pen near a house. His trial began at Beaver, on 
July 12, 1875. The first jury to try his case disagreed, after being 
out three days, eight Mormons and the Gentile foreman voting for 
acquittal, and three Gentiles for conviction. The second trial, 
which took place at Beaver, in September, 1876, resulted in a ver- 
dict of " guilty of murder in the first degree." Beadle says of the 
interest which the church then took in his conviction : " Daniel H. 
Wells went to Beaver, furnished some new evidence, coached the 
witnesses, attended to the spiritual wants of the jury, and Lee was 
convicted. He could not raise the money ($1000) necessary to 
appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, although he 
solicited it by subscription from wealthy leading Mormons for sev- 
eral days under guard." 1 

Criminals in Utah convicted of a capital crime were shot, and 
this was Lee's fate. It was decided that the execution should 
take place at the scene of the massacre, and there the sentence of 
the court was carried out on March 23, 1877. The coffin was 
made of rough pine boards after the arrival of the prisoner, and 
while he sat looking at the workmen a short distance away. 
When all the arrangements were completed, the marshal read the 
order of the court and gave Lee an opportunity to speak. A pho- 
tographer being ready to take a picture of the scene, Lee asked 
that a copy of the photograph be given to each of three of his wives, 
naming them. He then stood up, having been seated on his coffin, 
and spoke quietly for some time. He said that he was sacrificed 
to satisfy the feelings of others ; that he died " a true believer 
in the Gospel of Jesus Christ," but did not believe everything 
then taught by Brigham Young. He asserted that he " did noth- 
ing designedly wrong in this unfortunate affair," but did every- 
thing in his power to save the emigrants. Five executioners then 
stepped forward, and, when their rifles exploded, Lee fell dead on 
his coffin. 

Major (afterward General) Carlton, returning from California 

1 " Polygamy, " p. 507. 



534 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



in 1859, where he had escorted a paymaster, passed through Moun- 
tain Meadows, and, finding many bones of the victims still scattered 
around, gathered them, and erected over them a cairn of stones, 
on one of which he had engraved the words : " Here lie the bones 
of 120 men, women, and children from Arkansas, murdered on 
the 10th day of September, 1857." In the centre of the cairn was 
placed a beam, some fifteen feet high, with a cross-tree, on which 
was painted : ' ' Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will 
repay it." It was said that this was removed by order of Brigham 
Young. 1 

1 " Humiliating as it is to confess, in the 42d Congress there were gentlemen to be 
found in the committees of the House and in the Senate who were bold enough to 
declare their opposition to all investigation. One who had a national reputation during 
the war, from Bunker Hill to New Orleans, was not ashamed to say to those who sought 
the legislation that was necessary to make investigation possible, that it was 'too late.'" 
— " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 456. 



CHAPTER XVII 



AFTER THE "WAR" 

With the return of the people to their homes, the peaceful 
avocations of life in Utah were resumed. The federal judges 
received assignments to their districts, and the other federal officers 
took possession of their offices. Chief Justice Eckles selected as 
his place of residence Camp Floyd, as General Johnston's camp 
was named ; Judge Sinclair's district included Salt Lake City, and 
Judge Cradlebaugh's the southern part of the state. 

Judge Cradlebaugh, who conceived it to be a judge's duty to 
see that crime was punished, took steps at once to secure indict- 
ments in connection with the notorious murders committed during 
the " Reformation," and we have seen in a former chapter with 
what poor results. He also personally visited the Mountain 
Meadows, talked with whites and Indians cognizant with the 
massacre, and, on affidavits sworn to before him, issued warrants 
for the arrest of Haight, Higbee, Lee, and thirty-four others as 
participants therein, In order to hold court with any prospect 
of a practical result, a posse of soldiers was absolutely necessary, 
even for the protection of witnesses; but Governor Cumming, true 
to the reputation he had secured as a Mormon ally, declared that 
he saw no necessity for such use of federal troops, and requested 
their removal from Provo, where the court was in session ; and when 
the judge refused to grant his request, he issued a proclamation in 
which he stated that the presence of the military had a tendency 
"to disturb the peace and subvert the ends of justice." Before 
this dispute had proceeded farther, General Johnston received an 
order from Secretary Floyd, approved by Attorney General Black, 
directing that in future he should instruct his troops to act as a 
posse comitatus only on the written application of Governor Cum- 
ming. Thus did the church win one of its first victories after 
the reestablishment of " peace." 

535 



536 THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 

An incident in Salt Lake City at this time might have brought 
about a renewal of the conflict between federal and Mormon 
forces. The engraver of a plate with which to print counterfeit 
government drafts, when arrested, turned state's evidence and 
pointed out that the printing of the counterfeits had been done 
over the " Deseret Store " in Salt Lake City, which was on Young's 
premises. United States Marshal Dotson secured the plate, and 
with it others, belonging to Young, on which Deseret currency had 
been printed. This seemed to bring the matter so close to Young 
that officers from Camp Floyd called on Governor Cumming to 
secure his cooperation in arresting Young should that step be 
decided on. The governor refused with indignation to be a party 
to what he called "creeping through walls," that is, what he con- 
sidered a roundabout way to secure Young's arrest; and, when it 
became rumored in the city that General Johnston would use his 
troops without the governor's cooperation, Cumming directed 
Wells, the commander of the Nauvoo Legion, who had so recently 
been in rebellion against the government, to hold his militia in 
readiness for orders. Wells is quoted by Bancroft as saying that 
he told Cumming, " We would not let them [the soldiers] come ; 
that if they did come, they would never get out alive if we could 
help it." 1 The decision of the Washington authorities in favor 
of Governor Cumming as against the federal judges once more 
restored "peace." The only sufferer from this incident was 
Marshal Dotson, against whom Young, in his probate court, 
obtained a judgment of $2600 for injury to the Deseret currency 
plates, and a house belonging to Dotson, renting for $500 a year, 
was sold to satisfy this judgment, and bought in by an agent of 
Young. 

To complete the story of this forgery, it may be added that 
Brewer, the engraver who turned state's evidence, was shot down 
in Main Street, Salt Lake City, one evening, in company with 
J. Johnson, a gambler who had threatened to shoot a Mormon 
editor. A man who was a boy at the time gave J. H. Beadle the 
particulars of this double murder as he received it from the person 
who lighted a brazier to give the assassin a sure aim. 2 The cor- 
oner's jury the next day found that the men shot one another ! 

Soon all public attention throughout the country was centred 

1 "History of Utah," p. 573, note. a " Polygamy," p. 192. 



AFTER THE "WAR 



537 



in the coming conflict in the Southern states. In May, i860, the 
troops at Camp Floyd departed for New Mexico and Arizona, only 
a small guard being left under command of Colonel Cooke. In 
May, 1 86 1, Governor Cumming left Salt Lake City for the east so 
quietly that most of the people there did not hear of his departure 
until they read it in the local newspapers. He soon after appeared 
in Washington, and after some delay obtained a pass which per- 
mitted his passage through the Confederate lines. When the 
Southern rebellion became a certainty, Colonel Cooke and his force 
were ordered to march to the East in the autumn, after selling 
vast quantities of stores in Camp Floyd, and destroying the supplies 
and ammunition which they could not take away. Such a slaughter 
of prices as then occurred was, perhaps, without precedent. It was 
estimated that goods costing $4,000,000 brought only $100,000. 
Young had preached non-intercourse with the Gentile merchants 
who followed the army, but he could not lose so great an oppor- 
tunity as this, when, for instance, flour costing $28.40 per sack 
sold for 52 cents, and he invested $40,000. " For years after," 
says Stenhouse, "the 'regulation blue pants' were more familiar 
to the eye, in the Mormon settlements, than the Valley Tan 
Quaker gray." 

When Governor Cumming left the territory, the secretary, 
Francis H. Wooton, became acting governor. He made himself 
very offensive to the administration at Washington, and President 
Lincoln appointed Frank Fuller, of New Hampshire, secretary of 
the territory in his place, and Mr. Fuller proceeded at once to 
Salt Lake City, where he became acting governor. Later in the 
year the other federal offices in Utah were filled by the appoint- 
ment of John W. Dawson, of Indiana, as governor, John F. Kin- 
ney as chief justice, and R. P. Flenniken and J. R. Crosby as 
associate justices. 

The selection of Dawson as governor was something more than 
a political mistake. He was the editor and publisher of a party 
newspaper at Fort Wayne, Indiana, a man of bad morals, and a 
meddler in politics, who gave the Republican managers in his state 
a great deal of trouble. The undoubted fact seems to be that he 
was sent out to Utah on the recommendation of Indiana politicians 
of high rank, who wanted to get rid of him, and who gave no 
attention whatever to the requirements of his office. 



538 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Arriving at his post early in December, 1861, the new governor 
incurred the ill will of the Mormons almost immediately by veto- 
ing a bill for a state convention passed by the territorial legislature, 
and a memorial to Congress in favor of the admission of the terri- 
tory as a state (which Acting Governor Fuller approved). They 
were very glad, therefore, to take advantage of any mistake he 
might make ; and he almost at once gave them their opportunity, 
by making improper advances to a woman whom he had employed 
to do some work. She, as Dawson expressed it to one of his 
colleagues, " was fool enough to tell of it," and Dawson, learning 
immediately that the Mormons meditated a severe vengeance, at 
once made preparations for his departure. 

The Deseret News of January 1, 1862, in an editorial on the 
departure of the governor, said that for eight or ten days he had 
been confined to his room and reported insane ; that, when he left, 
he took with him his physician and four guards, " to each of whom, 
as reported last evening, $100 is promised in the event that they 
guard him faithfully, and prevent his being killed or becoming 
qualified for the office of chamberlain in the King's palace, till he 
shall have arrived at and passed the eastern boundary of the ter- 
ritory." After indicating that he had committed an offence against 
a lady which, under the common law, if enforced, " would have 
caused him to have bitten the dust," the News added: "Why he 
selected the individuals named for his bodyguard no one with 
whom we have conversed has been able to determine. That they 
will do him justice, and see him safely out of the territory, there 
can be no doubt." 

The hints thus plainly given were carried out. Beadle's ac- 
count says, " He was waylaid in Weber Canon, and received 
shocking and almost emasculating injuries from three Mormon 
lads." 1 Stenhouse says : " He was dreadfully maltreated by some 
Mormon rowdies who assumed, ' for the fun of the thing,' to be 
the avengers of an alleged insult. Governor Dawson had been 
betrayed into an offence, and his punishment was heavy." 2 Mrs. 
Waite says that the Mormons laid a trap for the governor, as they 
had done for Steptoe ; but the evidence indicates that, in Dawson's 
case, the victim was himself to blame for the opportunity he gave. 

Stenhouse says that the Mormon authorities were very angry 



1 " Polygamy," p. 195. 



2 " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 592. 



AFTER THE "WAR" 



539 



because of the aggravated character of the punishment dealt out 
to the governor, as they simply wanted him sent away disgraced, 
and that they had all his assailants shot. This is practically con- 
firmed by the Mormon historian Whitney, who says that one of the 
assailants was a relative of the woman insulted, and the others 
" merely drunken desperadoes and robbers who," he explains, 
" were soon afterward arrested for their cowardly and brutal as- 
sault upon the fleeing official. One of them, Lot Huntington, was 
shot by Deputy Sheriff O. P. Rockwell [so often Young's instru- 
ment in such cases] on January 16, in Rush Valley, while attempt- 
ing to escape from the officers, and two others, John P. Smith and 
Moroni Clawson, were killed during a similar attempt next day by 
the police of Salt Lake City. Their confederates were tried and 
duly punished." 1 

The departure of Governor Dawson left the executive office 
again in charge of Secretary Fuller. Early in 1862 the Indians 
threatened the overland mail route, and Fuller, having received 
instruction from Montgomery Blair to keep the route open at all 
hazards, called for thirty men to serve for thirty days. These were 
supplied by the Mormons. In the following April, the Indian 
troubles continuing, Governor Fuller, Chief Justice Kinney, and 
officers of the Overland Mail and Pacific Telegraph Companies 
united in a letter to Secretary Stanton asking that Superintendent 
of Indian Affairs Doty be authorized to raise a regiment of mounted 
rangers in the territory, with officers appointed by him, to keep 
open communication. These petitioners, observes Tullidge, " had 
overrated the federal power in Utah, as embodied in them- 
selves, for such a service, when they overlooked ex-Governor 
Young" and others. 2 Young had no intention of permitting any 
kind of a federal force to supplant his Legion. He at once tele- 
graphed to the Utah Delegate in Washington that the Utah militia 
(alias Nauvoo Legion) were competent to furnish the necessary 
protection. As a result of this presentation of the matter, Adjutant 
General L. L. Thomas, on April 28, addressed a reply to the peti- 
tion for protection, not to any of the federal officers in Utah, but 
to " Mr. Brigham Young," saying, " By express direction of the 
President of the United States you are hereby authorized to raise, 

1 " History of Utah," Vol. II, p. 38. 

2 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 252. 



54Q 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



arm, and equip one company of cavalry for ninety days' service." 1 
The order for carrying out these instructions was placed by the 
head of the Nauvoo Legion, "General" Wells — who ordered the 
burning of the government trains in 1857 — m tne bands of Major 
Lot Smith, who carried out that order ! 

Judges Flenniken and Crosby took their departure from the 
territory a month later than Dawson, and Thomas J. Drake of 
Michigan and Charles B. Waite of Illinois 2 were named as their 
successors, and on March 31 Stephen S. Harding of Milan, Indiana, 
a lawyer, was appointed governor. The new officers arrived in 
July. 

At this time the Mormons were again seeking admission for 
the State of Deseret. They had had a constitution prepared for 
submission to Congress, had nominated Young for governor and 
Kimball for lieutenant governor, and the legislature, in advance, 
had chosen W. H. Hooper and George Q. Cannon the United 
States senators. But Utah was not then admitted, while, on the 
other hand, an anti-polygamy bill (to be described later) was passed, 
and signed by President Lincoln on July 2. 

During the month preceding the arrival of Governor Harding, 
another tragedy had been enacted in the territory. Among the 
church members was a Welshman named Joseph Morris, who 
became possessed of the belief (which, as we have seen, had 
afflicted brethren from time to time) that he was the recipient 
of " revelations." One of these " revelations " having directed 
him to warn Young that he was wandering from the right course, 
he did this in person, and received a rebuke so emphatic that it 
quite overcame him. He betook himself, therefore, to a place 
called Kington Fort, on the Weber River, thirty-five miles north 
of Salt Lake City, and there he found believers in his prophetic 
gifts in the local Bishop, and quite a settlement of men and women, 
almost all foreigners. Young's refusal to satisfy the demand for 
published " revelations " gave some standing to a fanatic like 
Morris, who professed to supply that long-felt want, and he was 

1 Vol. II, Series 3, p. 27, War of the Rebellion, official records. 

2 After leaving Utah Judge Waite was appointed district attorney for Idaho, was 
elected to Congress, and published " A History of the Christian Religion," and other 
books. His wife, author of "The Mormon Prophet," was a graduate of Oberlin College 
and of the Union College of Law in Chicago, a member of the Illinois bar, founder 
of the Chicago Law Times, and manager of the publishing firm of C. W. Waite & Co. 



AFTER THE "WAR" 



541 



so prolific in his gift that three clerks were required to write 
down what was revealed to him. Among his announcements 
were the date of the coming of Christ and the necessity of " con- 
secrating " their property in a common fund. Having made a 
mistake in the date selected for Christ's appearance, the usual 
apostates sprang up, and, when they took their departure, they 
claimed the right to carry with them their share of the common 
effects. In the dispute that ensued, the apostates seized some 
Morrisite grain on the way to mill, and the Morrisites captured 
some apostates, and took them prisoners to Kington Fort. 

Out of these troubles came the issue of a writ by Judge Kinney 
for the release of the prisoners, the defiance of this writ by the 
Morrisites, and a successful appeal to the governor for the use 
of the militia to enable the marshal to enforce the writ. On the 
morning of June 13 the Morrisites discovered an armed force, in 
command of General R. T. Burton, the marshal's chief deputy, on 
the mountain that overlooked their settlement, and received from 
Burton an order to surrender in thirty minutes. Morris announced 
a ''revelation," declaring that the Lord would not allow his people 
to be destroyed. When the thirty minutes had expired, without 
further warning the Mormon force fired on the Morrisites with a 
cannon, killing two women outright, and sending the others to 
cover. But the devotees were not weak-hearted. For three days 
they kept up a defence, and it was not until their ammunition was 
exhausted that they raised a white flag. When Burton rode into 
their settlement and demanded Morris's surrender, that fanatic 
replied, " Never." Burton at once shot him dead, and then badly 
wounded John Banks, an English convert and a preacher of elo- 
quence, who had joined Morris after rebelling against Young's 
despotism. Banks died "suddenly" that evening. Burton fin- 
ished his work by shooting two women, one of whom dared to 
condemn his shooting of Morris and Banks, and the other for 
coming up to him crying. 1 

The bodies of Morris and Banks were carried to Salt Lake 
City and exhibited there. No one — President of the church or 
federal officer — took any steps at that time to bring their mur- 
derers to justice. Sixteen years later District Attorney Van Zile 

1 For accounts of this slaughter, see " Rocky Mountain Saints," pp. 593-606, and 
Beadle's " Life in Utah," pp. 413-420. 



542 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



tried Burton for this massacre, but the verdict was acquittal, as it 
has been in all these famous cases except that of John D. Lee. 

Ninety-three Morrisites, few of whom could speak English, 
were arraigned before Judge Kinney and placed under bonds. 
In the following March seven of the Morrisites were convicted 
of killing members of the posse, and sentenced by Judge Kinney 
to imprisonment for from five to fifteen years each, while sixty-six 
others were fined $100 each for resisting the posse. Governor 
Harding immediately pardoned all the accused, in response to a 
numerously signed petition. Beadle says that Bishop Wooley 
advised the governor to be careful about granting these pardons, 
as " our people feel it would be an outrage, and if it is done, they 
might proceed to violence " ; but that Bill Hickman, the Danite 
captain, rode thirty miles to sign the petition, saying that he was 
" one Mormon who was not afraid to sign." The grand jury that 
had indicted the Morrisites made a presentment to Judge Kinney, 
in which they said, " We present his Excellency Stephen S. Hard- 
ing, governor of Utah, as we would an unsafe bridge over a dan- 
gerous stream, jeopardizing the lives of all those who pass over 
it ; or as we would a pestiferous cesspool in our district, breathing 
disease and death." And the chief justice assured this jury that 
they addressed him "in no spirit of malice," and asked them to 
accept his thanks "for your cooperation in the support of my 
efforts to maintain and enforce the law." It is to the credit of 
the powers at Washington that this judge was soon afterward 
removed. 1 

1 Even the Mormon historian has only this to say on this subject, " Of the relative 
merit or demerit of the action of the United States and territorial authorities concerned 
in the Morrisite affair the historian does not presume to touch, further than to present 
the record itself and its significance." — Tullidge, " History of Salt Lake City," p. 320. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



ATTITUDE OF THE MORMONS DURING THE SOUTHERN 

REBELLION 

The attitude of the Mormons toward the government at the 
outbreak of hostilities with the Southern states was distinctly dis- 
loyal. The Dese7-et News of January 2, 1861, said, "The indica- 
tions are that the breach which has been effected between the 
North and South will continue to widen, and that two or more 
nations will be formed out of the fragmentary portions of the once 
glorious republic." The Mormons in England had before that 
been told in the Millennial Star (January 28, i860) that "the Union 
is now virtually destroyed." The sermons in Salt Lake City were 
of the same character. " General " Wells told the people on 
April 6, 1 86 1, that the general government was responsible for 
their expulsion from Missouri and Illinois, adding : " So far as we 
are concerned, we should have been better without a government 
than such a one. I do not think there is a more corrupt govern- 
ment upon the face of the earth." 1 Brigham Young on the same 
day said : " Our present President, what is his strength ? It is like 
a rope of sand, or like a rope made of water. He is as weak as 
water. ... I feel disgraced in having been born under a govern- 
ment that has so little power, disposition and influence for truth 
and right. Shame, shame on the rulers of this nation. I feel 
myself disgraced to hail such men as my countrymen." 2 

Elder G. A. Smith, on the same occasion, railing against the 
non-Mormon clergy, said, " Mr. Lincoln now is put into power by 
that priestly influence ; and the presumption is, should he not find 
his hands full by the secession of the Southern States, the spirit 
of priestly craft would force him, in spite of his good wishes and 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. VIII, pp. 373-374. 2 Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 4. 

543 



544 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



intentions, to put to death, if it was in his power, every man that 
believes in the divine mission of Joseph Smith." 1 On August 31, 
1862, Young quoted Smith's prediction of a rebellion beginning 
in South Carolina, and declared that " the nation that has slain the 
prophet of God will be broken in pieces like a potter's vessel," 
boasting that the Mormon government in Utah was "the best 
earthly government that was ever framed by man." 

Tullidge, discussing in 1876 the attitude of the Mormon church 
toward the South, said : — 

"With the exception of the slavery question and the policy of secession, the 
South stood upon the same ground that Utah had stood upon just previously. . . . 
And here we reach the heart of the Mormon policy and aims. Secession is 
not in it. Their issues are all inside the Union. The Mormon prophecy is that 
that people are destined to save the Union and preserve the constitution. . . . 
The North, which had just risen to power through the triumph of the Republican 
party, occupied the exact position toward the South that Buchanan's administra- 
tion had held toward Utah. And the salient points of resemblance between the 
two cases were so striking that Utah and the South became radically associated 
in the Chicago platform that brought the Republican party into office. Slavery 
and polygamy — these 'twin relics of barbarism 1 — were made the two chief 
planks of the party platform. Yet neither of these were the real ground of the 
contest. It continues still, and some of the soundest men of the times believe 
that it will be ultimately referred in a revolution so general that nearly every man 
in America will become involved in the action. . . . The Mormon view of the 
great national controversy, then, is that the Southern States should have done 
precisely what Utah did, and placed themselves on the defensive ground of their 
rights and institutions as old as the Union. Had they placed themselves under 
the political leadership of Brigham Young, they would have triumphed, for their 
cause was fundamentally right ; their secession alone was the national crime." 2 

Knowledge of the spirit which animated the Saints induced the 
Secretary of War to place them under military supervision, and in 
May, 1862, the Third California Infantry and a part of the Second 
California Cavalry were ordered to Utah. The commander of this 
force was Colonel P. E. Connor, who had a fine record in the Mexi- 
can War, and who was among the first, at the outbreak of the Re- 
bellion, to tender his services to the government in California, where 
he was then engaged in business. On assuming command of the 
military district of Utah, which included Utah and Nevada, Colonel 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. IX, p. 1 8. 

2 Tullidge's " Life of Brigham Young," Chap. 24. 



DURING THE SOUTHERN REBELLION 



545 



Connor issued an order directing commanders of posts, camps, and 
detachments to arrest and imprison, until they took the oath of al- 
legiance, " all persons who from this date shall be guilty of uttering 
treasonable sentiments against the government," adding, "Traitors 
shall not utter treasonable sentiments in this district with impunity, 
but must seek some more genial soil, or receive the punishment 
they so richly deserve." 

When Connor's force arrived at Fort Crittenden (the Camp 
Floyd of General Johnston), the Mormons supposed that it would 
make its camp there. Persons having a pecuniary interest in the 
reoccupation of the old site, where they wanted to sell to the gov- 
ernment the buildings they had bought for a song, tried hard to in- 
duce Colonel Connor to accept their view, even warning him of 
armed Mormon opposition to his passage through Salt Lake City. 
But he was not a man to be thus deterred. Among the rumors that 
reached him was one that Bill Hickman, the Danite chief, was of- 
fering to bet $500 in Salt Lake City that the colonel could not cross 
the river Jordan. Colonel Connor is said to have sent back the 
reply that he " would cross the river Jordan if hell yawned below 
him." 

On Saturday, October 18, Connor marched twenty miles toward 
the Mormon capital, and the next day crossed the Jordan at 2 p.m., 
without finding a person in sight on the eastern shore. The com- 
mand, knowing that the Nauvoo Legion outnumbered them vastly, 
and ignorant of the real intention of the Mormon leaders, advanced 
with every preparation to meet resistance. They were, as an ac- 
companying correspondent expressed it, " six hundred miles of sand 
from reinforcements." The conciliatory policy of so many federal 
officers in Utah would have induced Colonel Connor to march 
quietly around the city, and select soVne* place for his camp where 
it would not offend Mormon eyes. What he did do was to halt his 
command when the city was two miles distant, form his column 
with an advance guard of cavalry and a light battery, the infantry 
and commissary wagons coming next, and in this order, to the be- 
wilderment of the Mormon authorities, march into the principal 
street, with his two bands playing, to Emigrants' Square, and so to 
Governor Harding's residence. 

The only United States flag displayed on any building that day 
was the governor's. The sidewalks were packed with men, women, 

2 N 



546 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



and children, but not a cheer was heard. In front of the governor's 
residence the battalion was formed in two lines, and the governor, 
standing in the buggy in which he had ridden out to meet them, 
addressed them, saying that their mission was one of peace and 
security, and urging them to maintain the strictest discipline. The 
troops, Colonel Connor leading, gave three cheers for the country 
and the flag, and three for Governor Harding, and then took up 
their march to the slope at the base of Wahsatch Mountain, where 
the Camp Douglas of to-day is situated. This camp was in sight of 
the Mormon city, and Young's residence was in range of its guns. 
Thus did Brigham's will bend before the quiet determination of a 
government officer who respected his government's dignity. 

But the Mormon spirit was to be still further tested. On De- 
cember 8 Governor Harding read his first message to the territorial 
legislature. It began with a tribute to the industry and enterprise 
of the people ; spoke of the progress of the war, and of the appli- 
cation of the territory for statehood, and in this connection said, 
" I am sorry to say that since my sojourn amongst you I have 
heard no sentiments, either publicly or privately expressed, that 
would lead me to believe that much sympathy is felt by any con- 
siderable number of your people in favor of the government of the 
United States, now struggling for its very existence." He declared 
that the demand for statehood should not be entertained unless it 
was " clearly shown that there is a sufficient population" and " that 
the people are loyal to the federal government and the laws." He 
recommended the taking of a correct census to settle the question 
of population. 

All these utterances were gall and wormwood to a body of Mor- 
mon lawmakers, but worse was to come. Congress having passed 
an act " to prevent and punish the practice of polygamy in the ter- 
ritories," the governor naturally considered it his duty to call atten- 
tion to the matter. Prevising that he desired to do so "in no 
offensive manner or unkind spirit," he pointed out that the practice 
was founded on no territorial law, resting merely on custom ; and 
laid down the principle that " no community can happily exist with 
an institution so important as that of marriage wanting in all those 
qualities that make it homogeneal with institutions and laws of 
neighboring civilized countries having the same spirit." He spoke 
of the marriage of a mother and her daughter to the same man as 



DURING THE SOUTHERN REBELLION 



547 



" no less a marvel in morals than in matters of taste," and warned 
them against following the recommendation of high church author- 
ities that the federal law be disregarded. This message, according 
to the Mormon historian, was " an insult offered to their representa- 
tives." 1 

These representatives resented the " insult " by making no ref- 
erence in the journal to the reading of the message, and by failing 
to have it printed. When this was made known in Washington, 
the Senate, on January 16, 1863, called for a report by the Commit- 
tee on Territories concerning the suppression of the message, and 
they got one from its chairman, Benjamin Wade, pointing out that 
Utah Territory was in the control of "a sort of Jewish theocracy," 
affording "the first exhibition, within the limits of the United States, 
of a church ruling the state," and declaring that the governor's 
message contained " nothing that should give offence to any legis- 
lature willing to be governed by the laws of morality," closing with 
a recommendation that the message be printed by Congress. The 
territorial legislature adjourned on January 16 without sending to 
Governor Harding for his approval a single appropriation bill, and 
the next day the so-called legislature of the State of Deseret met 
and received a message from the state governor, Brigham Young. 

Next the new federal judges came under Mormon displeasure. 
We have seen the conflict of jurisdiction existing between the 
federal and the so-called probate courts and their officers. Judge 
Waite perceived the difficulties thus caused as soon as he entered 
upon his duties, and he sent to Washington an act giving the 
United States marshal authority to select juries for the federal 
courts, taking from the probate courts jurisdiction in civil actions, 
and leaving them a limited criminal jurisdiction subject to appeal 
to the federal court, and providing for a reorganization of the 
militia under the federal governor. Bernhisel and Hooper sent 
home immediate notice of the arrival of this bill in Washington. 

Now, indeed, it was time for Brigham to "bend his finger." If 
a governor could openly criticise polygamy, and a judge seek to 
undermine Young's legal and military authority, without a protest, 
his days of power were certainly drawing to a close. Accordingly, 
a big mass-meeting was held in Salt Lake City on March 3, 1863, 
" for the purpose of investigating certain acts of several of the United 

1 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 305. 



548 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



States officials in the territory." Speeches were made by John Tay- 
lor and Young, in which the governor and judges were denounced. 1 
A committee was appointed to ask the governor and two judges to 
resign and leave the territory, and a petition was signed request- 
ing President Lincoln to remove them, the first reason stated being 
that " they are strenuously endeavoring to create mischief, and stir 
up strife between the people of the territory and the troops in 
Camp Douglas." The meeting then adjourned, the band playing 
the "Marseillaise." 

The committee, consisting of John Taylor, J. Clinton, and Orson 
Pratt, called on the governor and the judges the next morning, and 
met with a flat refusal to pay any attention to the mandate of the 
meeting. "You may go back and tell your constituents," said 
Governor Harding, "that I will not resign my office, and will not 
leave this territory, until it shall please the President to recall me. 
I will not be driven away. I may be in danger in staying, but my 
purpose is fixed." Judge Drake told the committee that he had a 
right to ask Congress to pass or amend any law, and that it was a 
special insult for him, a citizen, to be asked by Taylor, a foreigner, 
to leave any part of the Republic. " Go back to Brigham Young, 
your master," said he, "that embodiment of sin, shame, and dis- 
gust, and tell him that I neither fear him, nor love him, nor hate 
him — that I utterly despise him. Tell him, whose tools and trick- 
sters you are, that I did not come here by his permission, and that 
I will not go away at his desire nor by his direction. ... A horse 
thief or a murderer has, when arrested, a right to speak in court ; 
and, unless in such capacity or under such circumstances, don't 
you even dare to speak to me again." Judge Waite simply declined 
to resign because to do so would imply " either that I was sensible 
of having done something wrong, or that I was afraid to remain at 
my post and perform my duty." 2 

As soon as the action of the Mormon mass-meeting became 
known at Camp Douglas, all the commissioned officers there 
signed a counter petition to President Lincoln, " as an act of duty 
we owe our government," declaring that the charge of inciting 
trouble between the people and the troops was "a base and un- 
qualified falsehood," that the accused officers had been "true and 

1 Reported in Mrs. Waite's " Mormon Prophet," pp. 98-102. 

2 Text of replies in Mrs. Waite's " Mormon Prophet," pp. 107-109. 



DURING THE SOUTHERN REBELLION 



549 



faithful to the government," and that there was no good reason 
for their removal. 

Excitement in Salt Lake City now ran high. Young, in a vio- 
lent harangue in the Tabernacle on March 8, after declaring his 
loyalty to the government, said, " ' Is there anything that could be 
asked that we would not do ? Yes. Let the present administra- 
tion ask us for a thousand men, or even five hundred, and I'd see 

them d d first, and then they could not have them. What 

do you think of that?' (Loud cries of 'Good, Good,' and great 
applause.) " 1 

Young expected arrest, and had a signal arranged by which the 
citizens would rush to his support if this was attempted. A false 
alarm of this kind was given on March 9, and in an hour two thou- 
sand armed men were assembled around his house. 2 Steptoe, who 
in an earlier year had declined the governorship of the territory and 
petitioned for Young's reappointment, took credit for what followed 
in an article in the Overland Monthly for December, 1896. Being 
at Salt Lake City at the time, he suggested to Wells and other 
leaders that they charge Young with the crime of polygamy before 
one of the magistrates, and have him arraigned and admitted to 
bail, in order to place him beyond the reach of the military officers. 
The affidavit was sworn to before the compliant Chief Justice 
Kinney by Young's private secretary, was served by the territorial 
marshal, and Young was released in $5000 bail. Colonel Connor 
was informed of this arrest before he arrived in the city, and re- 
traced his steps ; the citizens dispersed to their homes ; the grand 
jury found no indictment against Young, and in due time he was 
discharged from his recognizance. 

"In the meantime," says a Mormon chronicler, "our 'outside' 
friends in this city telegraphed to those interested in the mail 3 and 

1 Correspondence of the Chicago Tribune. 

2 " On the inside of the high walls surrounding Brigham's premises scaffolding was 
hastily erected in order to enable the militia to fire down upon the passing volunteers. 
The houses on the route which occupied a commanding position where an attack could 
be made upon the troops were taken possession of, and the small cannon brought out." 
— " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 604. 

8 The first Pony Express left Sacramento and St. Joseph, Missouri, on April 3, i860. 
Major General M. B. Hazen in an official letter dated February, 1807 (House Misc. 
Doc. No. 75, 2d Session, 39th Congress), said: "Ben Holiday I believe to be the only 
outsider acceptable to those people, and to benefit himself I believe he would throw the 
whole weight of his influence in favor of Mormonism. By the terms of his contract to 



550 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



telegraph lines that they must work for the removal of the troops, 
Governor Harding, and Judges Waite and Drake, otherwise there 
would be ' difficulty,' and the mail and telegraph lines would be 
destroyed. Their moneyed interest has given them great energy 
in our behalf." 1 This " work " told. Governor Harding was 
removed, leaving the territory on June n, and, as proof that this 
was due to "work" and not to his own incapacity, he was made 
Chief Justice of Colorado Territory. 2 With him were displaced 
Chief Justice Kinney and Secretary Fuller. 3 Judges Waite and 
Drake wrote to the President that it would take the support of 
five thousand men to make the federal courts in Utah effective. 
Waite resigned in the summer of 1863. Drake remained, but his 
court did practically no business. 

Lincoln's policy, as he expressed it then, was, " I will let the 
Mormons alone if they will let me alone." 4 He had war enough 
on his hands without seeking any diversion in Utah. J. D. Doty, 
the superintendent of Indian affairs, succeeded Harding as gov- 
ernor, Amos Reed of Wisconsin became secretary, and John Titus 
of Philadelphia chief justice. 

Affairs in Utah now became more quiet. General Connor (he 
was made a brigadier general for his service in the Bear River 
Indian campaign in 1 862-1 863) yielded nothing to Mormon threats 
or demands. A periodical called the Union Vidette^ published by 
his force, appeared in November, 1863, and in it was printed a 
circular over his name, expressing belief in the existence of rich 
veins of gold, silver, copper, and other metals in the territory, and 
promising the fullest protection to miners and prospectors ; and the 
beginning of the mining interests there dated from the picking up 
of a piece of ore by a lady member of the camp while attending a 

carry the mails from the Missouri to Utah, all papers and pamphlets for the newsdealers, 
not directed to subscribers, are thrown out. It looks very much like a scheme to keep 
light out of that country, nowhere so much needed." 

1 D. O. Calder's letter to George Q. Cannon, March 13, 1863, in Millennial Star. 

2 " Every attempt was made to seduce him from the path of duty, not omitting 
the same appliances which had been brought to bear upon Steptoe and Dawson, but all 
in vain." — "The Mormon Prophet," p. 109. 

3 Whitney, the Mormon historian, says that while the President was convinced that 
Harding was not the right man for the place, " he doubtless believed that there was 
more or less truth in the charges of ' subserviency ' to Young made by local anti-Mor- 
mons against Chief Justice Kinney and Secretary Fuller. He therefore removed them 
as well." — "History of Utah," Vol. II, p. 103. 

* Young's letter to Cannon, " History of Salt Lake City," p. 325. 



DURING THE SOUTHERN REBELLION 



551 



picnic party. Although the Mormons had discouraged mining as 
calculated to cause a rush of non-Mormon residents, they did not 
show any special resentment to the general's policy in this respect. 
With the increasing evidence that the Union cause would triumph, 
the church turned its face toward the federal government. We 
find, accordingly, a union of Mormons and Camp Douglas soldiers 
in the celebration of Union victories on March 4, 1865, with a 
procession and speeches, and, when General Connor left to assume 
command of the Department of the Platte, a ball in his honor was 
given in Salt Lake City; and at the time of Lincoln's assassination 
church and government officers joined in sendees in the Taber- 
nacle, and the city was draped in mourning. 



CHAPTER XIX 



EASTERN VISITORS TO SALT LAKE CITY — UNPUNISHED 
MURDERERS 

In June, 1865, a distinguished party from the East visited Salt 
Lake City, and their visit was not without public significance. It 
included Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives, Lieutenant Governor Bross of Illinois, Samuel Bowles, 
editor of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, and A. D. 
Richardson of the staff of the New York Tribune. Crossing the 
continent was still effected by stage-coach at that time, and the 
Mormon capital had never been visited by civilians so well known 
and so influential. Mr. Colfax had stated publicly that President 
Lincoln, a short time before his death, had asked him to make a 
thorough investigation of territorial matters, and his visit was re- 
garded as semiofficial. The city council formally tendered to the 
visitors the hospitality of the city, and Mr. Bowles wrote that the 
Speaker's reception "was excessive if not oppressive." 

In an interview between Colfax and Young, during which the 
subject of polygamy was brought up by the latter, he asked what 
the government intended to do with it, now that the slavery ques- 
tion was out of the way. Mr. Colfax replied with the expression 
of a hope that the prophets of the church would have a new " rev- 
elation " which would end the practice, pointing out an example in 
the course of Missouri and Maryland in abolishing slavery, with- 
out waiting for action by the federal government. " Mr. Young," 
says Bowles, " responded quietly and frankly that he should read- 
ily welcome such a revelation ; that polygamy was not in the orig- 
inal book of the Mormons ; that it was not an essential practice in 
the church, but only a privilege and a duty, under special com- 
mand of God." 1 

It is worth while to note Mr. Bowles's summing up of his ob- 

1 "Across the Continent," p. III. 
552 



EASTERN VISITORS TO SALT LAKE CITY 



553 



servations of Mormondom during this visit. "The result," he 
wrote, " of the whole experience has been to increase my appre- 
ciation of the value of their material progress and development to 
the nation ; to evoke congratulations to them and to the country 
for the wealth they have created, and the order, frugality, morality 
{sic), and industry they have organized in this remote spot in our 
continent; to excite wonder at the perfection of their church sys- 
tem, the extent of its ramifications, the sweep of its influence, and 
to enlarge my respect for the personal sincerity and character of 
many of the leaders in the organization." 1 These were the expres- 
sions of a leading journalist, thought worthy to be printed later in 
book form, on a church system and church officers about which 
he had gathered his information during a few hours' visit, and con- 
cerning which he was so fundamentally ignorant that he called 
their Bible — whose title is, " Book of Mormon" — "book of the 
Mormons ! " It is reasonably certain that he had never read 
Smith's "revelations," doubtful if he was acquainted with even 
the framework of the Mormon Bible, and probable that he was 
wholly ignorant of the history of their recent " Reformation." 
Many a profound opinion of Mormonism has been founded on as 
little opportunity for accurate knowledge. 2 

The Eastern visitors soon learned, however, how little intention 
the Mormon leaders had to be cajoled out of polygamy. Before 
Mr. Bowles's book was published, he had to add a supplement, in 
which he explained that " since our visit to Utah in June, the 
leaders among the Mormons have repudiated their professions of 
loyalty to the government, and denied any disposition to yield the 
issue of polygamy." Tullidge sneers at Colfax "for entertaining 
for a while the pretty plan" of having the Mormons give up 
polygamy as the Missourians did slavery. The Deseret News, soon 
after the Colfax party left the territory, expressed the real Mormon 
view on this subject, saying : — 

1 "Across the Continent," p. 106. 

2 As another illustration of the value of observations by such transient students 
may be cited the following, from Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke's " Greater Britain," Vol. 
I, p. 148 : " Brigham's deeds have been those of a sincere man. His bitterest opponents 
cannot dispute the fact that, in 1844, when Nauvoo was about to be deserted owing to 
attacks by a ruffianly mob, Brigham Young rushed to the front and took command. To 
be a Mormon leader was then to be the leader of an outcast people, with a price set on 
his head, in a Missouri country in which almost every man who was not a Mormon was 
by profession an assassin." 



554 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" As a people we view every revelation from the Lord as sacred. Polygamy 
was none of our seeking. It came to us from Heaven, and we recognized it, and 
still do, the voice of Him whose right it is not only to teach us, but to dictate 
and teach all men. . . . They [Gentiles] talk of revelations given, and of receiv- 
ing counter revelations to forbid what has been commanded, as if man was the 
sole author, originator, and designer of them. ... Do they wish to brand a 
whole people with the foul stigma of hypocrisy, who, from their leaders to the 
last converts that have made the dreary journey to these mountain wilds for 
their faith, have proved their honesty of purpose and deep sincerity of faith by 
the most sublime sacrifices ? Either that is the issue of their reasoning, or they 
imagine that we serve and worship the most accommodating Deity ever dreamed 
of in the wildest vagaries of the most savage polytheist." 

This was a perfectly consistent statement of the Mormon posi- 
tion, a simple elaboration of Young's declaration that, to give up 
belief in Smith as a prophet, and in his " revelations," would be to 
give up their faith. Just as truly, any later " revelation," repealing 
the one concerning polygamy, must be either a pretence or a tem- 
porary expedient, in orthodox Mormon eyes. The Mormons date 
the active crusade of the government against polygamy from the 
return of the Colfax party to the East, holding that this question 
did not enter into the early differences between them and the gov- 
ernment. 1 

In the year following Colfax's visit, there occurred in Utah two 
murders which attracted wide notice, and which called attention 
once more to the insecurity of the life of any man against whom 
the finger of the church was crooked. The first victim was O. N. 
Brassfield, a non-Mormon, who had the temerity to marry, on 
March 20, 1866, the second polygamous wife of a Mormon while 
the husband was in Europe on a mission. As he was entering his 
house in Salt Lake City, on the third day of the following month, 
he was shot dead. An order that had been given to disband the 
volunteer troops still remaining in the territory was counter- 
manded from Washington, and General Sherman, then commander 
of that department, telegraphed to Young that he hoped to hear of 
no more murders of Gentiles in Utah, intimating that, if he did, it 
would be easy to reenlist some of the recently discharged volun- 
teers and march them through the territory. 

The second victim was Dr. J. King Robinson, a young man 
who had come to Utah as assistant surgeon of the California vol- 

1 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 358. 



EASTERN VISITORS TO SALT LAKE CITY 



555 



unteers, married the daughter of a Mormon whose widow and 
daughters had left the church, and taken possession of the land on 
which were some well-known warm springs, with the intention of 
establishing there a sanitarium. The city authorities at once set 
up a claim to the warm springs property, a building Dr. Robinson 
had erected there was burned, and, as he became aggressive in 
asserting his legal rights, he was called out one night, ostensibly to 
set a broken leg, knocked down, and shot dead. The audacity of 
this crime startled even the Mormons, and the opinion has been 
expressed that nothing more serious than a beating had been 
intended. There was an inquest before a city alderman, at which 
some non-Mormon lawyers and Judges Titus and McCurdy were 
asked to assist. The chief feature of this hearing was the sum- 
ming up by Ex-Governor J. B. Weller, of California, in which he 
denounced such murders, asked if there was not an organized 
influence which prevented the punishment of their perpetrators, 
and confessed that the prosecution had not been permitted " to lift 
the veil, and show the perpetrators of this horrible murder." 1 

General W. B. Hazen, in his report of February, 1867, said of 
these victims : — 

"There is no doubt of their murder from Mormon church influences, although 
I do not believe by direct command. Principles are taught in their churches 
which would lead to such murders. I have earnestly to recommend that a list be 
made of the Mormon leaders, according to their importance, excepting Brigham 
Young, and that the President of the United States require the commanding officer 
at Camp Douglas to arrest and send to the state's prison at Jefferson City, Mo., 
beginning at the head of the list, man for man hereafter killed as these men 
were, to be held until the real perpetrators of the deed, with evidence. for their 
conviction, be given up. I believe Young for the present necessary for us there." 2 

Had this policy been adopted, Mormon prisoners would soon 
have started East, for very soon afterward three other murders of 
the same character occurred, although the victims were not so 
prominent. 3 Chief Justice Titus incurred the hatred of the Mor- 
mons by determined, if futile, efforts to bring offenders in such cases 
to justice, and to show their feeling they sent him a nightgown ten 
feet long, at the hands of a negro. 

1 Text in " Rocky Mountain Saints," Appendix I. 

2 Mis. House Doc. No. 75, 2d Session, 39th Congress. 

3 See note 70, p. 628, Bancroft's " History of Utah." 



556 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



When, in July, 1869, a delegation from Illinois, that included 
Senator Trumbull, Governor Oglesby, Editor Medill of the Chicago 
Tribune, and many members of the Chicago Board of Trade, visited 
Salt Lake City, they were welcomed by and affiliated with the 
Gentile element ; 1 and when, in the following October, Vice Presi- 
dent Colfax paid a second visit to the city, he declined the courtesies 
tendered to him by the city officers. 2 He made an address from 
the portico of the Townsend House, of which polygamy was the 
principle feature, and was soon afterward drawn into a newspaper 
discussion of the subject with John Taylor. 

1 In an interview between Young and Senator Trumbull during this visit (reported 
in the Alta California), the following conversation took place: — 

" Young — We can take care of ourselves. Cumming was good enough in his way, 
for you know he was simply Governor of the Territory, while I was and am Governor of 
the people." 

"Senator Trumbull — Mr. Young, may I say to the President that you intend to 
observe the laws under the constitution ? " 
" Young — Well — yes — we intend to." 

" Senator Trumbull — But may I say to him that you will do so ? " 
" Young — Yes, yes; so far as the laws are just, certainly." 

2 " Mr. Colfax politely refused to accept the proffered courtesies of the city. Brig- 
ham was reported to have uttered abusive language in the Tabernacle towards the Gov- 
ernment and Congress, and to have charged the President and Vice President with 
being drunkards. One of the Aldermen who waited upon Mr. Colfax to tender to him the 
hospitality of the city could only say that he did not hear Brigham say so." — " Rocky 
Mountain Saints," p. 638. 



CHAPTER XX 

GENTILE IRRUPTION AND MORMON SCHISM 

The end of the complete seclusion of the Mormon settlement in 
Utah from the rest of the country — complete except so far as it 
was interrupted by the passage through the territory of the Cali- 
fornia emigration — dates from the establishment of Camp Floyd, 
and the breaking up of that camp and the disposal of its accumu- 
lation of supplies, which gave the first big impetus to mercantile 
traffic in Utah. 1 Young was ever jealous of the mercantile power, 
so openly jealous that, as Tullidge puts it, "to become a merchant 
was to antagonize the church and her policies, so that it was 
almost illegitimate for Mormon men of enterprising character to 
enter into mercantile pursuits." This policy naturally increased 
the business of non-Mormons who established themselves in the 
city, and their prosperity directed the attention of the church 
authorities to them, and the pulpit orators hurled anathemas at 
those who traded with them. Thus Young, in a discourse, on 
March 28, 1858, urging the people to use home-made material, 
said : " Let the calicoes lie on the shelves and rot. I would 
rather build buildings every day and burn them down at night, 
than have traders here communing with our enemies outside, and 
keeping up a hell all the time, and raising devils to keep it going. 
They brought their hell with them. We can have enough of our 
own without their help." 2 A system of espionage, by means of 
the city police, was kept on the stores of non-Mormons, until it 

1 " The community had become utterly destitute of almost everything necessary to 
their social comfort. The people were poorly clad, and rarely ever saw anything on 
their tables but what was prepared from flour, corn, beet-molasses, and the vegetables 
and fruits of their gardens. ... It was at Camp Floyd, indeed, where the principal 
Utah merchants and business men of the second decade of our history may be said to 
have laid the foundation of their fortunes, among whom were the Walker Brothers." — 
Tullidge, " History of Salt Lake City," pp. 246-247. 

^Journal of Discourses, Vol. VII, p. 45. 

557 



558 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



required courage for a Mormon to make a purchase in one of 
these establishments. To trade with an apostate Mormon was, 
of course, a still greater offence. 

Among the mercantile houses that became strong after the 
establishment of Camp Floyd was that of Walker Brothers. 
There were four of them, Englishmen, who had come over with 
their mother, and shared in the privations of the early Utah set- 
tlement. Possessed of practical business talent and independence 
of thought, they rebelled against Young's dictatorial rule and the 
varied trammels by which their business was restricted. Without 
openly apostatizing, they insisted on a measure of independence. 
One manifestation of this was a refusal to contribute one-tenth of 
their income as a tithe for the expenditure of which no account 
was rendered. One year, when asked .for their tithe, they gave the 
Bishop of their ward a check for $500 as "a contribution to the 
poor." When this form of contribution was reported to Young, 
he refused to accept it, and sent the brothers word that he would 
cut them off from the church unless they paid their tithe in the 
regular way. Their reply was to tear up the check and defy Young. 

The natural result followed. Brigham and his lieutenants 
waged an open war on these merchants, denouncing them in the 
Tabernacle, and keeping policemen before their doors. The 
Walkers, on their part, kept on offering good wares at reasonable 
prices, and thus retained the custom of as many Mormons as 
dared trade with them openly, or could slip in undiscovered. 
Even the expedient of placing a sign bearing an " all-seeing eye" 
and the words "Holiness to the Lord" over every Mormon 
trader's door did not steer away from other doors the Mormon cus- 
tomers who delighted in bargains. But the church power was 
too great for any one firm to fight. Not only was a business 
man's capital in danger in those times, when the church was 
opposed to him, but his life was not safe. Stenhouse draws this 
picture of the condition of affairs in 1866 : — 

" After the assassination of Dr. Robinson, fears of violence were not unnatural, 
and many men who had never before carried arms buckled on their revolvers. 
Highly respectable men in Salt Lake City forsook the sidewalks after dusk, and, 
as they repaired to their residences, traversed the middle of the public street, 
carrying their revolvers in their hands. 

"With such a feeling of uneasiness, nearly all the non-Mormon merchants 
joined in a letter to Brigham Young, offering, if the church would purchase their 



GENTILE IRRUPTION AND MORMON SCHISM 



559 



goods and estates at twenty-five per cent less than their valuation, they would 
leave the Territory. Brigham answered them cavalierly that he had not asked 
them to come into the Territory, did not ask them to leave it, and that they might 
stay as long as they pleased. 

" It was clear that Brigham felt himself master of the situation, and the mer- 
chants had to bide their time, and await the coming change that was anticipated 
from the completion of the Pacific Railroad. As the great iron way approached 
the mountains, and every day gave greater evidence of its being finished at a 
much earlier period than was at first anticipated, the hope of what it would 
accomplish nerved the discontented to struggle with the passing day." 1 

The Mormon historian incorporates these two last paragraphs 
in his book, and says : " Here is at once described the Gentile and 
apostate view of the situation in those times, and, confined as it 
is to the salient point, no lengthy special argument in favor of 
President Young's policies could more clearly justify his mercan- 
tile cooperative movement. It was the moment of life or death to 
the temporal power of the church. . . . The organization of 
Z. C. M. I. at that crisis saved the temporal supremacy of the 
Mormon commonwealth." 2 It was to meet outside competition 
with a force which would be invincible that Young conceived the 
idea of Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, which was incor- 
porated in 1869, with Young as president. In carrying out this 
idea no opposing interest, whether inside the church or out of it, 
received the slightest consideration. "The universal dominance 
of the head of the church is admitted," says Tullidge, " and in 
1868, before the opening of the Utah mines and the existence of 
a mixed population, there was no commercial escape from the 
necessities of a combination." 3 

Young is said to have received the idea of the big cooperative 
enterprise from a small trader who asked permission to establish a 
mercantile system on the cooperative plan, of moderate dimensions, 
throughout the territory. He gave it definite shape at a meeting 
of merchants in October, 1868, which was followed by a circular 
explaining the scheme to the people. A preamble asserted " the 
impolicy of leaving the trade and commerce of this territory to be 
conducted by strangers." The constitution of the concern provided 

1 " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 625. 

2 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 385. 

3 " Cooperation is as much a cardinal and essential doctrine of the Mormon church 
as baptism for the remission of sin." — Tullidge, " History of Salt Lake City." 



560 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



for a capital of $3,000,000 in $100 shares. Young's original idea 
was to have all the merchants pool their stocks, those who found 
no places in the new establishment to go into some other business, 
— farming for instance, — renting their stores as they could. Of 
course this meant financial ruin to the unprovided for, and the 
opposition was strong. But Young was not to be turned from the 
object he had in view. One man told Stenhouse that when he 
reported to Young that a certain merchant would be ruined by the 
scheme, and would not only be unable to pay his debts, but would 
lose his homestead, Young's reply was that the man had no busi- 
ness to get into debt, and that 4 'if he loses his property it serves 
him right." Tullidge, in an article in Harper's Magazine for Sep- 
tember, 1 87 1 (written when he was at odds with Young), said, 
"The Mormon merchants were publicly told that all who refused to 
join the cooperation should be left out in the cold ; and against the 
two most popular of them the Lion of the Lord roared, ' If Henry 
Lawrence don't mind what's he's about I'll send him on a mission, 
and W. S. Godbe I'll cut off from the church.' " 

After the organization of the concern in 1869 some of the lead- 
ing Mormon merchants in Salt Lake City sold their goods to it on 
favorable terms, knowing that the prices of their stock would go 
down when the opening of the railroad lowered freight rates. The 
Z. C. M. I. was started as a wholesale and retail concern, and 
Young recommended that ward stores be opened throughout the city 
which should buy their goods of the Institution. Local cooperative 
stores were also organized throughout the territory, each of which 
was under pressure to make its purchases of the central concern. 
Branches were afterward established at Ogden, at Logan, and at 
Soda Springs, Idaho, and a large business was built up and is still 
continued. 1 The effect of this new competition on the non-Mor- 
mon establishments was, of course, very serious. Walker Brothers' 
sales, for instance, dropped $5000 or $6000 a month, and only the 

1 Bancroft says that in 1883 the total sales of the Institution exceeded $4,000,000, 
and a half yearly dividend of five per cent was paid in October of that year, and there 
was a reserve fund of about $125,000; he placed the sales of the Ogden branch, in 1883, 
at about $800,000, and of the Logan branch at about $600,000. The thirty-second 
annual statement of the Institution, dated April 5, 1901, contains the following figures: 
Capital stock, $1,077,144.89; reserve, $362,898.95 ; undivided profits, $179,042.88; cash 
receipts, February 1 to December 31, 1900, $3,457,624.44, sales for the same period, 
$3,489,571.84. The branch houses named in this report are at Ogden City and Provo, 
Utah, and at Idaho Falls, Idaho. 



GENTILE IRRUPTION AND MORMON SCHISM 561 



opportunity to divert their capital profitably to mining saved them 
and others from immediate ruin. 

But at this time an influence was preparing to make itself felt 
in Utah which was a more powerful opponent of Brigham Young's 
authority than any he had yet encountered. This influence took 
shape in what was known as the " New Movement," and also as 
" The Reformation." Its original leaders were W. S. Godbe and 
E. L. T. Harrison. Godbe was an Englishman, who saw a good 
deal of the world as a sailor, embraced the Mormon faith in his 
own country when seventeen years of age, and walked most of the 
way from New York to Salt Lake City in 185 1. He became 
prominent in the Mormon capital as a merchant, making the trip 
over the plains twenty-four times between 185 1 and 1859. Harri- 
son was an architect by profession, a classical scholar, and a writer 
of no mean ability. 

With these men were soon associated Eli B. Kelsey, a leading 
elder in the Mormon church, a president of Seventies, and a promi- 
nent worker in the English missions ; H. W. Lawrence, a wealthy 
merchant who was a Bishop's counsellor ; Amasa M. Lyman, who 
had been one of the Twelve Apostles and was acknowledged to be 
one of the most eloquent preachers in the church ; W. H. Sherman, 
a prominent elder and a man of literary ability, who many years 
later went back to the church ; T. B. H. Stenhouse, a Scotchman 
by birth, who was converted to Mormonism in 1846, and took a 
prominent part in missionary work in Europe, for three years hold- 
ing the position of president of the Swiss and Italian missions ; he 
emigrated to this country with his wife and children in 1855, prac- 
tically penniless, and supported himself for a time in New York 
City as a newspaper writer ; in Salt Lake City he married a second 
wife by Young's direction, and one of his daughters by his first 
wife married Brigham's eldest son. Stenhouse did not win the 
confidence of either Mormons or non-Mormons in the course of his 
career, but his book, " The Rocky Mountain Saints," contains much 
valuable information. Active with these men in the " New Move- 
ment " was Edward W. Tullidge, an elder and one of the Seventy, 
and a man of great literary ability. In later years Tullidge, while 
not openly associating himself with the Mormon church, wrote the 
" History of Salt Lake City " which the church accepts, a " Life 
of Brigham Young," which could not have been more fulsome if 
2 o 



562 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



written by the most devout Mormon, and a " Life of Joseph the 
Prophet," which is a valueless expurgated edition of Joseph's auto- 
biography which ran through the Millennial Star. 

The " New Movement " was assisted by the advent of non-Mor- 
mons to the territory, by Young's arbitrary methods in starting his 
cooperative scheme, by the approaching completion of the Pacific 
Railroad, and, in a measure, by the organization of the Reorgan- 
ized Church under the leadership of the prophet Joseph Smith's 
eldest son. Two elders of that church, who went to Salt Lake 
City in 1863, were refused permission to preach in the Tabernacle, 
but did effective work by house-to-house visitations, and there 
were said to be more than three hundred of the " Josephites," as 
they were called, in Salt Lake City in 1864. 1 

Harrison and Tullidge had begun the publication of a magazine 
called the Peep 0' Day at Camp Douglas, but it was a financial 
failure. Then Godbe and Harrison started the Utah Maga- 
zine, of which Harrison was editor. This, too, was only a drain 
on their purses. Accordingly, some time in the year 1868, giving 
it over to the care of Tullidge, they set out on a trip to New York 
by stage. Both were in doubt on many points regarding their 
church ; both were of that mental make-up which is susceptible 
to " revelations " and "callings"; by the time they reached New 
York they realized that they were "on the road to apostasy." 

Long discussions of the situation took place between them, and 
the outcome was characteristic of men who had been influenced 
by such teachings as those of the Mormons. Kneeling down in 
their room, they prayed earnestly, and as they did so "a voice 
spoke to them." For three weeks, while Godbe transacted his 
mercantile business, his friend prepared questions on religion and 
philosophy, " and in the evening, by appointment, ' a band of 
spirits ' came to them and held converse with them, as friends 
would speak with friends. One by one the questions prepared by 
Mr. Harrison were read, and Mr. Godbe and Mr. Harrison, with 
pencil and paper, took down the answers as they heard them given 
by the spirits." 2 The instruction which they thus received was 

1 "Persecution followed, as they claimed; and in early summer about one-half of 
the Josephites in Salt Lake City started eastward, so great being the excitement that 
General Connor ordered a strong escort to accompany them as far as Greene River. To 
those who remained, protection was also afforded by the authorities." — BANCROFT, 
" History of Utah," p. 645. 

2 "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 631. 



GENTILE IRRUPTION AND MORMON SCHISM 563 



Delphic in its clearness — that which was true in Mormonism 
should be preserved and the rest should be rejected. 

When they returned to Utah they took Elder Eli B. Kelsey, 
Elder H. W. Lawrence, a man of wealth, and Stenhouse into their 
confidence, and it was decided to wage open warfare on Young's 
despotism, using the Utah Magazine as their mouthpiece. With- 
out attacking Young personally, or the fundamental Mormon 
beliefs, the magazine disputed Young's doctrine that the world 
was degenerating to ruin, held up the really " great characters " 
the world has known, that Young might be contrasted with them, 
and discussed the probabilities of honest errors in religious beliefs. 
When the Mormon leaders read in the magazine such doctrine as 
that, " There is one false error which possesses the minds of some 
in this, that God Almighty intended the priesthood to do our 
thinking," they realized that they had a contest on their hands. 

Young got into trouble with the laboring men at this time. 
He had contracts for building a part of the Pacific Railroad, which 
were sublet at a profit. An attempt by him to bring about a reduc- 
tion of wages gave the magazine an opportunity to plead the 
laborers' cause which it gladly embraced. 1 

In the summer of 1869 Alexander and David Hyrum 
Smith, sons of the prophet, visited Salt Lake City in the interest 
of the Reorganized Church. Many of Young's followers still 
looked on the sons of the prophet as their father's rightful suc- 
cessor to the leadership of the Church, as Young at Nauvoo had 
promised that Joseph III should be. But these sons now found 
that, even to be acknowledged as members of Brigham's fold, 
they must accept baptism at the hands of one of his elders, and 
acknowledge the "revelation" concerning polygamy as coming 
from God. They had not come with that intent. But they called 
on Young and discussed with him the injection of polygamy into 
the church doctrines. Young finally told them that they pos- 
sessed, not the spirit of their father, but of their mother Emma, 
whom Young characterized as " a liar, yes, the damnedest liar that 
lived," declaring that she tried to poison the prophet. 2 He refused 
to them the use of the Tabernacle, but they spoke in private 

1 Harper's Magazine, Vol. XLIII, p. 605. 

2 For Alexander Smith's report, see True Latter-Day Saints' Herald, Vol. XVI, 
pp. 85-86. 



564 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



houses and, through the influence of the Walker brothers, secured 
Independence Hall. The Brighamites, using a son of Hyrum 
Smith as their mouthpiece, 1 took pains that a goodly number of 
polygamists should attend the Independence Hall meetings, and 
interruptions of the speakers turned the gatherings into something 
like personal wrangles. 

The presence of the prophet's sons gave the leaders of " The 
Reformation " an opportunity to aim a thrust at what was then 
generally understood to be one of Brigham Young's ambitions, 
namely, the handing down of the Presidency of the church to his 
oldest son ; and an article in their magazine presented the matter 
in this light : " If we know the true feeling of our brethren, it is 
that they never intend Joseph Smith's nor any other man's son to 
preside over them, simply because of their sonship. The prin- 
ciple of heirship has cursed the world for ages, and with our 
brethren we expect to fight it till, with every other relic of tyranny, 
it is trodden under foot." Young accepted this challenge, and at 
once ordered Harrison and two other elders in affiliation with him 
to depart on missions. They disobeyed the order. 

Godbe and Harrison told their friends in Utah that they had 
learned from the spirits who visited them in New York that the 
release of the people of the territory from the despotism of the 
church could come only through the development of the mines. 
So determined was the opposition of Young's priesthood to this 
development that its open advocacy in the magazine was the cause 
of more serious discussion than that given to any of the other sub- 
jects treated. As "The Reformation " did not then embrace more 
than a dozen members, the courage necessary to defy the church 
on such a question was not to be belittled. Just at that time came 
the visit of the Illinois party and of Vice President Colfax, and 
the latter was made acquainted with their plans and gave them 
encouragement. Ten days later the magazine, in an article on 
"The True Development of the Territory," openly advised paying 
more attention to mining. Young immediately called together the 
" School of the Prophets." This was an organization instituted 
in Utah, with the professed object of discussing doctrinal ques- 
tions, having the " revelations " of the prophet elucidated by his 

1 Hyrum's widow went to Salt Lake City, and died there in September, 1852, at the 
house of H. C. Kimball, who had taken care of her. 



GENTILE IRRUPTION AND MORMON SCHISM 



565 



colleagues, etc. It was not open to all church members, the 
" scholars " attending by invitation, and it soon became an organi- 
zation under Young's direction which took cognizance of the secu- 
lar doings of the people, exercising an espionage over them. The 
school is no longer maintained. Before this school Young de- 
nounced the " Reformers " in his most scathing terms, going so 
far as to intimate that his rule was itself in danger. Consequently 
the leaders of the "New Movement" were notified to appear 
before the High Council for a hearing. 

When this hearing occurred, Young managed that Godbe and 
Harrison should be the only persons on trial. Both of them defied 
him to his face, denying his " right to dictate to them in all things 
spiritual and temporal," — this was the question put to them, — and 
protesting against his rule. They also read a set of resolutions 
giving an outline of their intended movements. They were at 
once excommunicated, and the only elder, Eli B. Kelsey, who 
voted against this action was immediately punished in the same 
way. Kelsey was not granted even the perfunctory hearing that 
was customarily allowed in such cases, and he was " turned over 
to the devil," instead of being consigned by the usual formula 
" to the buffetings of Satan." 

But this did not silence the " Reformers." Their lives were 
considered in danger by their acquaintances, and the assassination 
of the most prominent of them was anticipated ; 1 but they went 

1 " In August my husband sent a respectful and kindly letter to the Bishop of our 
ward, stating that he had no faith in Brigham's claim to an ' Infallible Priesthood,' and 
that he considered that he ought to be cut off from the church. I added a postscript 
stating that I wished to share my husband's fate. A little after ten o'clock, on the Sat- 
urday night succeeding our withdrawal from the church, we were returning home together 
. . . when we suddenly saw four men come out from under some trees at a little dis- 
tance from us. . . . As soon as they approached, they seized hold of my husband's 
arms, one on each side, and held him firmly, thus rendering him almost powerless. 
They were all masked. ... In an instant I saw them raise their arms, as if taking aim, 
and for one brief second I thought that our end had surely come, and that we, like so 
many obnoxious persons before us, were about to be murdered for the great sin of apos- 
tasy. This I firmly believe would have been my husband's fate if I had not chanced to 
be with him or had I run away. . . . The wretches, although otherwise well armed, 
were not holding revolvers in their hands as I at first supposed. They were furnished 
with huge garden syringes, charged with the most disgusting filth. My hair, bonnet, 
face, clothes, person — every inch of my body, every shred I wore — were in an instant 
saturated, and my husband and myself stood there reeking from head to foot. The vil- 
lains, when they had perpetrated this disgusting and brutal outrage, turned and fled." 
— Mrs. Stenhouse, "Tell it All,"' pp. 578-581. 



566 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



straight ahead on the lines they had proclaimed. Their first pub- 
lic meetings were held on Sunday, December 19, 1869. The 
knowledge of the fact that they claimed to act by direct and recent 
revelation gave them no small advantage with a people whose 
belief rested on such manifestations of the divine will, and they 
had crowded audiences. The services were continued every Sun- 
day, and on the evening of one week day ; the magazine went on 
with its work, and they were the founders of the Salt Lake Tribune 
which later, as a secular journal, has led the Gentile press in Utah. 

But the attempt to establish a reformed Mormonism did not 
succeed, and the organization gradually disappeared. One of the 
surviving leaders said to me (in October, 1901): " My parents had 
believed in Mormonism, and I believed in the Mormon prophet 
and the doctrines set forth in his revelations. We hoped to purify 
the Mormon church, eradicating evils that had annexed them- 
selves to it in later years. But our study of the question showed 
us that the Mormon faith rested on no substantial basis, and we 
became believers in transcendentalism." Mr. Godbe and Mr. 
Lawrence still reside in Utah. The former has made and lost 
more than one fortune in the mines. The Mormon historian 
Whitney says of the leaders in this attempted reform : " These 
men were all reputable and respected members of the community. 
Naught against their morality or general uprightness of character 
was known or advanced." 1 Stenhouse, writing three years before 
Young's death, said : — 

" But for the boldness of the Reformers, Utah to-day would not have been 
what it is. Inspired by their example, the people who have listened to them 
disregarded the teachings of the priesthood against trading with or purchasing 
of the Gentiles. The spell was broken, and, as in all such like experience, the 
other extreme was for a time threatened. Walker Brothers regained their lost 
trade. . . . Reference could be made to elders, some of whom had to steal 
away from Utah, for fear of violent hands being laid upon them had their intended 
departure been made known, who are to-day wealthy and respected gentlemen in 
the highest walks of life, both in the United States and in Europe." 2 

1 Whitney's " History of Utah," Vol. II, p. 332. 

2 For accounts of "The Reformation " by leaders in it, see Chap. 53 of Stenhouse's 
" Rocky Mountain Saints," and Tullidge's article, Harper's Magazine, Vol. XLIII, p. 602. 



CHAPTER XXI 



THE LAST YEARS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG 

Governor Doty died in June, 1865, without coming in open 
conflict with Young, and was succeeded by Charles Durkee, a 
native of Vermont, but appointed from Wisconsin, which state he 
had represented in the United States Senate. He resigned in 1869, 
and was succeeded by J. Wilson Shaffer of Illinois, appointed by 
President Grant at the request of Secretary of War Rawlins, who, 
in a visit to the territory in 1868, concluded that its welfare re- 
quired a governor who would assert his authority. Secretary S. A. 
Mann, as acting governor, had, just before Shaffer's arrival, signed 
a female suffrage bill passed by the territorial legislature. This 
gave offence to the new governor, and Mann was at once suc- 
ceeded by Professor V. H. Vaughn of the University of Alabama, 
and Chief Justice C. C. Wilson (who had succeeded Titus) by 
James B. McKean. The latter was a native of Rensselaer County, 
New York ; had been county judge of Saratoga County from 1854 
to 1858, a member of the 36th and 37th Congresses, and colonel 
of the 72d New York Volunteers. 

Governor Shaffer's first important act was to issue a proclama- 
tion forbidding all drills and gatherings of the militia of the ter- 
ritory (which meant the Nauvoo Legion), except by the order of 
himself or the United States marshal. Wells, signing himself 
" Lieutenant General," sent the governor a written request for the 
suspension of this order. The governor, in reply, reminded Wells 
that the only " Lieutenant General " recognized by law was then 
Philip H. Sheridan, and declined to assist him in a course which 
" would aid you and your turbulent associates to further convince 
your followers that you and your associates are more powerful 
than the federal government." Thus practically disappeared this 
famous Mormon military organization. 

Governor Shaffer was ill when he reached Utah, and he died 

567 



568 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



a few days after his reply to Wells was written, Secretary Vaughn 
succeeding him until the arrival of G. A. Black, the new secretary, 
who then became acting governor pending the arrival of George 
L. Woods, an ex-governor of Oregon, who was next appointed to 
the executive office. 

As soon as the new federal judges, who were men of high 
personal character, took their seats, they decided that the United 
States marshal, and not the territorial marshal, was the proper 
person to impanel the juries in the federal courts, and that the 
attorney general appointed by the President under the Territorial 
Act, and not the one elected under that act, should prosecute in- 
dictments found in the federal courts. The chief justice also 
filled a vacancy in the office of federal attorney. The territorial 
legislature of 1870, accordingly, made no appropriation for the 
expenses of the courts ; and the chief justice, in dismissing the 
grand and petit juries on this account, explained to them that he 
had heard one of the high priesthood question the right of Con- 
gress even to pass the Territorial Act. 

In September, 1871, the United States marshal summoned 
a grand jury from nine counties (twenty-three jurors and seventeen 
talesmen) of whom only seven were Mormons. All the latter, ex- 
amined on their voir dire, declared that they believed that polyg- 
amy was a revelation to the church, and that they would obey the 
revelation rather than the law, and all were successfully challenged. 
This grand jury, early in October, found indictments against 
Brigham Young, " General " Wells, G. Q. Cannon, and others 
under a territorial statute directed against lewdness and im- 
proper cohabitation. This action caused intense excitement in 
the Mormon capital. Prosecutor Baskin was quoted as saying that 
the troops at Camp Douglas would be used to enforce the warrant 
for Young's arrest if necessary, and the possible outcome has 
been thus portrayed by the Mormon historian : — 

" It was well known that he [Young] had often declared that he never would 
give himself up to be murdered as his predecessor, the Prophet Joseph, and his 
brother Hyrum had been, while in the hands of the law, and under the sacred 
pledge of the state for their safety ; and, ere this could have been repeated, ten 
thousand Mormon Elders would have gone into the jaws of death with Brigham 
Young. In a few hours the suspended Nauvoo Legion would have been in 
arms." 1 

1 Tullidge's " History of Salt Lake City," p. 527. 



THE LAST YEARS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG 569 

The warrant was served on Young at his house by the United 
States marshal, and, as Young was ill, a deputy was left in charge 
of him. On October 9 Young appeared in court with the leading 
men of the church, and a motion to quash the indictment was made 
before the chief justice and denied. 

The same grand jury on October 28 found indictments for 
murder against D. H. Wells, W. H. Kimball, and Hosea Stout 
for alleged responsibility for the killing of Richard Yates during 
the "war" of 1857. The fact that the man was killed was not 
disputed ; his brains were knocked out with an axe as he was sleep- 
ing by the side of two Mormon guards. 1 The defence was that he 
died the death of a spy. Wells was admitted to bail in $50,000, 
and the other two men were placed under guard at Camp Douglas. 
Indictments were also found against Brigham Young, W. A. Hick- 
man, O. P. Rockwell, G. D. Grant, and Simon Dutton for the 
murder of one of the Aikin party at Warm Springs. They were 
all admitted to bail. 

When the case against Young, on the charge of improper 
cohabitation, was called on November 20, his counsel announced 
that he had gone South for his health, as was his custom in winter, 
and the prosecution thereupon claimed that his bail was forfeited. 
Two adjournments were granted at the request of his counsel. On 
January 3 Young appeared in court, and his counsel urged that he 
be admitted to bail, pleading his age and ill health. The judge 
refused this request, but said that the marshal could, if he desired, 
detain the prisoner in one of Young's own houses. This course 
was taken, and he remained under detention until released by the 
decision of the United States Supreme Court. 

In April, 1872, that court decided that the territorial jury law 
of Utah, in force since 1859, na -d received the implied approval of 
Congress ; that the duties of the attorney and marshal appointed 
by the President under the Territorial Act " have exclusive relation 
to cases arising under the laws and constitution of the United 
States," and "the making up of the [jury] list and all matters con- 
nected with the designation of jurors are subject to the regulation 
of territorial law." 2 This was a great victory for the Mormons. 

In October, 1873, the United States Supreme Court rendered 

1 Hickman tells the story in his "Brigham's Destroying Angel," p. 122. 

2 Chilton vs. Englebrech, 13 Wallace, p. 434. 



57o 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



its decision in the case of " Snow vs. The United States " on the 
appeal from Chief Justice McKean's ruling about the authority of 
the prosecuting officers. It overruled the chief justice, confining 
the duties of the attorney appointed by the President to cases in 
which the federal government was concerned, concluding that " in 
any event, no great inconvenience can arise, because the entire 
matter is subject to the control and regulation of Congress." 1 

The following comments, from three different sources, will 
show the reader how many influences were then shaping the con- 
trol of authority in Utah : — 

"At about this time [December, 1871] a change came in the action of the 
Department of Justice in these Utah prosecutions, and fair-minded men of the 
nation demanded of the United States Government that it should stop the dis- 
graceful and illegal proceedings of Judge McKean's court. The influence of Sen- 
ator Morton was probably the first and most potent brought to bear in this matter, 
and immediately thereafter Senator Lyman Trumbull threw the weight of his 
name and statesmanship in the same direction, which resulted in Baskin and 
Maxwell being superseded, . . . and finally resulted in the setting aside of two 
years of McKean's doings as illegal by the august decision of the Supreme 
Court." — Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City," p. 547. 

" The Attorney for the Mormons labored assiduously at Washington, and, 
contrary to the usual custom in the Supreme Court, the forthcoming decision had 
been whispered to some grateful ears. The Mormon anniversary conference 
beginning on the sixth of April was continued over without adjournment awaiting 
that decision." — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 688. 

"Thus stood affairs during the winter of 1870-71. The Gentiles had the 
courts, the Mormons had the money. In the spring Nevada came over to run 
Utah. Hon. Thomas Fitch of that state had been defeated in his second race 
for Congress ; so he came to Utah as Attorney for the Mormons. Senator Stew- 
art and other Nevada politicians made heavy investments in Utah mines ; liti- 
gation multiplied as to mining titles, and Judge McKean did not rule to suit 
Utah. . . . The great Emma mine, worth two or three millions, became a power 
in our judicial embroglio. The Chief Justice, in various rulings, favored the pres- 
ent occupants. Nevada called upon Senator Stewart, who agreed to go straight 
to Long Branch and see that McKean was removed. But Ulysses the Silent . . . 
promptly made reply that if Judge McKean had committed no greater fault than 
to revise a little Nevada law, he was not altogether unpardonable." — Beadle, 
" Polygamy," p. 429. 

The Supreme Court decisions left the federal courts in Utah 
practically powerless, and President Grant understood this. On 
February 14, 1873, he sent a special message to Congress, saying 

1 Wallace's " Reports," Vol. XVIII, p. 317. 



THE LAST YEARS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG 



57i 



that he considered it necessary, in order to maintain the supremacy 
of the laws of the United States, " to provide that the selection 
of grand and petit jurors for the district courts [of Utah], if not 
put under the control of federal officers, shall be placed in the 
hands of persons entirely independent of those who are determined 
not to enforce any act of Congress obnoxious to them, and also to 
pass some act which shall deprive the probate courts, or any court 
created by the territorial legislature, of any power to interfere 
with or impede the action of the courts held by the United States 
judges." 

In line with this recommendation Senator Frelinghuysen had 
introduced a bill in the Senate early in February, which the Senate 
speedily passed, the Democrats and Schurz, Carpenter, and Trum- 
bull voting against it. Mormon influence fought it with despera- 
tion in the House, and in the closing hours of the session had it 
laid aside. The diary of Delegate Hooper says on this subject, 
" Maxwell [the United States Marshal for Utah] said he would 
take out British papers and be an American citizen no longer. 
Claggett [Delegate from Montana] asserted that we had spent 
$200,000 on the judiciary committee, and Merritt [Delegate from 
Idaho] swore that there had been treachery and we had bribed 
Congress." 1 

In the election of 1872 the Mormons dropped Hooper, who 
had long served them as Delegate at Washington, and sent in his 
place George Q. Cannon, an Englishman by birth and a polyga- 
mist. But Mormon influence in Washington was now to receive a 
severe check. On June 23, 1874, the President approved an act 
introduced by Mr. Poland of Vermont, and known as the Poland 
Bill, 2 which had important results. It took from the probate courts 

1 The Mormons do not always conceal the influences they employ to control leg- 
islation in which they are interested. Thus Tullidge, referring to the men of whom their 
Cooperative Institution buys goods, says : " But Z. C. M. I. has not only a commercial 
significance in the history of our city, but also a political one. It has long been the tem- 
poral bulwark around the Mormon community. Results which have been seen in Utah 
affairs, preservative of the Mormon power and people, unaccountable to ' the outsider ' 
except on the now stale supposition that ' the Mormon Church has purchased Con- 
gress,' may be better traced to the silent but potent influence of Z. C. M. I. among the 
ruling business men of America, just as John Sharp's position as one of the directors of 

U. P. R r — a compeer among such men as Charles Francis Adams, Jay Gould and 

Sidney Dillon — gives him a voice in Utah affairs among the railroad rulers of America." 
— " History of Salt Lake City," p. 734. 

2 Chap. 469, 1st Session, 43d Congress. 



572 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



in Utah all civil, chancery, and criminal jurisdiction ; made the 
common law in force ; provided that the United States attorney 
should prosecute all criminal cases arising in the United States 
courts in the territory ; that the United States marshal should 
serve and execute all processes and writs of the supreme and dis- 
trict courts, and that the clerk of the district court in each district 
and the judge of probate of the county should prepare the jury 
lists, each containing two hundred names, from which the United 
States marshal should draw the grand and petit juries for the term. 
It further provided that, when a woman filed a bill to declare void 
a marriage because of a previous marriage, the court could grant 
alimony ; and that, in any prosecution for adultery, bigamy, or 
polygamy, a juror could be challenged if he practised polygamy or 
believed in its righteousness. 

The suit for divorce brought by Young's wife " No. 19," — Ann 
Eliza Young — in January, 1873, attracted attention all over the 
country. Her bill charged neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion, 
set forth that Young had property worth $8,000,000 and an income 
of not less than $40,000 a year, and asked for an allowance of $1000 
a month while the suit was pending, $6000 for preliminary counsel 
fees, and $14,000 more when the final decree was made, and that 
she be awarded $200,000 for her support. Young in his reply 
surprised even his Mormon friends. After setting forth his legal 
marriage in Ohio, stating that he and the plaintiff were mem- 
bers of a church which held the doctrine that " members thereto 
might rightfully enter into plural marriages," and admitting such a 
marriage in this case, he continued : " But defendant denies that 
he and the said plaintiff intermarried in any other or different 
sense or manner than that above mentioned or set forth. Defen- 
dant further alleges that the said complainant was then informed 
by the defendant, and then and there well knew that, by reason of 
said marriage, in the manner aforesaid, she could not have and 
need not expect the society or personal attention of this defendant 
as in the ordinary relation between husband and wife." He 
further declared that his property did not exceed $600,000 in value, 
and his income $6000 a month. 

Judge McKean, on February 25, 1875, ordered Young to pay 
Ann Eliza $3000 for counsel fees and $500 a month alimony 
pendente lite, and, when he failed to obey, sentenced him to pay a 



THE LAST YEARS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG 573 

fine of $25 and to one day's imprisonment. Young was driven to 
his own residence by the deputy marshal for dinner, and, after 
taking what clothing he required, was conducted to the penitentiary, 
where he was locked up in a cell for a short time, and then placed 
in a room in the warden's office for the night. 

Judge McKean was accused of inconsistency in granting ali- 
mony, because, in so doing, he had to give legal sanction to Ann 
Eliza's marriage to Brigham while the latter's legal wife was living. 
Judge McKean's successor, Judge D. P. Loew, refused to imprison 
Young, taking the ground that there had been no valid marriage. 
Loew's successor, Judge Boreman, ordered Young imprisoned until 
the amount due was paid, but he was left at his house in custody 
of the marshal. Boreman's successor, Judge White, freed Young 
on the ground that Boreman's order was void. White's successor, 
Judge Schaeffer, in 1876 reduced the alimony to $100 per month, 
and, in default of payment, certain of Young's property was sold 
at auction and rents were ordered seized to make up the deficiency. 
The divorce case came to trial in April, 1877, when Judge Schaeffer 
decreed that the polygamous marriage was void, annulled all orders 
for alimony, and assessed the costs against the defendant. 

Nothing further of great importance affecting the relations of 
the church with the federal government occurred during the rest 
of Young's life. Governor Woods incurred the animosity of the 
Mormons by asserting his authority from time to time ("he 
intermeddled," Bancroft says). In 1874 he was succeeded by S. B. 
Axtell of California, who showed such open sympathy with the 
Mormon view of his office as to incur the severest censure of the 
non-Mormon press. Axtell was displaced in the following year by 
G. B. Emery of Tennessee, who held office until the early part of 
1880, when he was succeeded by Eli H. Murray. 1 

1 Governor Murray showed no disposition to yield to Mormon authority. In his 
message in 1882 he referred pointedly, among other matters, to the tithing, declaring 
that "the poor man who earns a dollar by the sweat of his brow is entitled to that dol- 
lar," and that " any exaction or undue influence to dispossess him of any part of it, in 
any other manner than in payment of a legal obligation, is oppression," and he granted 
a certificate of election as Delegate to Congress to Allan G. Campbell, who received only 
1350 votes to 18,568 for George Q. Cannon, holding that the latter was not a citizen. 
Governor Murray's resignation was accepted in March, 1886, and he was succeeded in 
the following May by Caleb W. West, who, in turn, was supplanted in May, 1889, by 
A. L. Thomas, who was territorial governor when Utah was admitted as a state. 



CHAPTER XXII 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DEATH — HIS CHARACTER 

Brigham Young died in Salt Lake City at 4 p.m. on Wednes- 
day, August 29, 1877. He was attacked with acute cholera mor- 
bus on the evening of the 23d, after delivering an address in the 
Council House, and it was followed by inflammation of the bowels. 
The body lay in state in the Tabernacle from Saturday, Septem- 
ber 1, until Sunday noon, when the funeral services were held. 
He was buried in a little plot on one of the main streets of Salt 
Lake City, not far from his place of residence. 

The steps by which Young reached the position of head of the 
Mormon church, the character of his rule, and the means by which 
he maintained it have been set forth in the previous chapters of 
this work. In the ruler we have seen a man without education, 
but possessed of an iron will, courage to take advantage of unusual 
opportunities, and a thorough knowledge of his flock gained by 
association with them in all their wanderings. In his people we 
have seen a nucleus of fanatics, including some of Joseph Smith's 
fellow-plotters, constantly added to by new recruits, mostly poor 
and ignorant foreigners, who had been made to believe in Smith's 
Bible and "revelations," and been further lured to a change of 
residence by false pictures of the country they were going to, and 
the business opportunities that awaited them there. Having made 
a prominent tenet of the church the practice of polygamy, which 
Young certainly knew the federal government would not approve, 
he had an additional bond with which to unite the interests of his 
flock with his own, and thus to make them believe his approval as 
necessary to their personal safety as they believed it to be neces- 
sary to their salvation. The command which Young exercised in 
these circumstances is not an illustration of any form of leader- 
ship which can be held up to admiration. It is rather an exempli- 

574 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DEATH — HIS CHARACTER 575 



fication of that tyranny in church and state which the world 
condemns whenever an example of it is afforded. 

Young was the centre of responsibility for all the rebellion, 
nullification, and crime carried on under the authority of the church 
while he was its head. He never concealed his own power. He 
gloried in it, and declared it openly in and out of the Tabernacle. 
Authority of this kind cannot be divided. Whatever credit is due 
to Young for securing it, is legitimately his. But those who point 
to its acquisition as a sign of greatness, must accept for him, with 
it, responsibility for the crimes that were carried on under it. 

The laudators of Young have found evidence of great execu- 
tive ability in his management of the migration from Nauvoo to 
Utah. But, in the first place, this migration was compulsory ; the 
Mormons were obliged to move. In the second place its accom- 
plishment was no more successful than the contemporary migra- 
tions to Oregon, and the loss of life in the camps on the Missouri 
River was greater than that incurred in the great rush across the 
plains to California ; while the horrors of the hand-cart movement 
— a scheme of Young's own device — have never been equalled in 
Western travel. In Utah, circumstances greatly favored Young's 
success. Had not gold been discovered when it was in California, 
the Mormon settlement would long have been like a dot in a 
desert, and its ability to support the stream of immigrants attracted 
from Europe would have been problematic, since, in more than 
one summer, those already there had narrowly escaped starvation 
while depending on the agricultural resources of the valley. 

J. Hyde, writing in 1857, s^id that Young "by the native force 
and vigor of a strong mind " had taken from beneath the Mormon 
church system " the monstrous stilts of a miserable superstition, 
and consolidated it into a compact scheme of the sternest fanati- 
cism." 1 In other words, he might have explained, instead of 
relying on such " revelations " as served Smith, he refused to use 
artificial commands of God, and substituted the commands of 
Young, teaching, and having his associates teach, that obedience 
to the head of the church was obedience to the Supreme Power. 
Both Hyde and Stenhouse, writing before Young's death, and as 
witnesses of the strength of his autocratic government, overesti- 
mated him. This is seen in the view they took of the effect of his 

1 " Mormonism," p. 151. 



576 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



death. Hyde declared that under any of the other contemporary 
leaders — Taylor, Kimball, Orson Hyde, or Pratt: " Mormonism 
will decline. Brigham is its sun ; this is its daytime." Stenhouse 
asserted that, " Theocracy will die out with Brigham's flickering 
flame of life; and, when he is laid in the tomb, many who are 
silent now will curse his memory for the cruel suffering that his 
ambition caused them to endure." But all such prophecies remain 
unfulfilled. Young's death caused no more revolution or change 
in the Mormon church than does the death of a pope in the 
Church of Rome. " Regret it who may," wrote a Salt Lake City 
correspondent less than three months after his burial, " the fact is 
visible to every intelligent person here that Mormonism has taken 
a new lease of life, and, instead of disintegration, there never was 
such unity among its people ; and in the place of a rapidly dying- 
consumptive, whose days were numbered, the body of the church 
is the picture of pristine health and vigor, with all the ambition 
and enthusiasm of a first love." 1 The new leadership has, grudg- 
ingly, traded polygamy for statehood ; but the church power is as 
strong and despotic and unified to-day on the lines on which it is 
working as it was under Young, only exercising that power on the 
more civilized basis rendered necessary by closer connection with 
an outside civilization. 

Young was a successful accumulator of property for his own 
use. A poor man when he set out from Nauvoo, his estate at his 
death was valued at between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000. This was 
a great accumulation for a pioneer who had settled in a wilderness, 
been burdened with a polygamous family of over twenty wives 
and fifty children, and the cares of a church denomination, without 
salary as a church officer. " I am the only person in the church," 
Young said to Greeley in 1859, " wno has not a regular calling 
apart from the church service " ; and he added, " We think a man 
who cannot make his living aside from the ministry of the church 
unsuited to that office. I am called rich, and consider myself 
worth $250,000; but no dollar of it ever was paid me by the 
church, nor for any service as a minister of the Everlasting Gos- 
pel." 2 Two years after his death a writer in the Salt Lake Trib- 
tme z asserted that Young had secured in Utah from the tithing 

1 New York Times, November 23, 1877. 

2 " Overland Journey," p. 213. 3 June 25, 1879. 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DEATH — HIS CHARACTER 



577 



$13,000,000, squandered about $9,000,000 on his family, and left 
the rest to be fought for by his heirs and assigns. 1 Notwithstand- 
ing the vast sums taken by him in tithing for the alleged benefit 
of the poor, there was not in Salt Lake City, at the time of his 
death, a single hospital or "home" creditable to that settlement. 

The mere acquisition of his wealth no more entitled Young to 
be held up as a marvellous man of business than did Tweed's ac- 
cumulations give him this distinction in New York. Beadle de- 
clares that " Brigham never made a success of any business he 
undertook except managing the Mormons," and cites among his 
business failures the non-success of every distant colony he planted, 
the Cottonwood Canal (whose mouth was ten feet higher than its 
source), his beet-sugar manufactory, and his Colorado Transporta- 
tion Company (to bring goods for southern Utah up the Colorado 
River). 2 

The reports of Young's discourses in the Temple show that he 
was as determined in carrying out his own financial schemes as he 
was in enforcing orders pertaining to the church. Here is an 
almost humorous illustration of this. In urging the people one 
day to be more regular in paying their tithing, he said they need 
not fear that he would make a bad use of their money, as he had 
plenty of his own, adding : — 

" I believe I will tell you how I get some of it. A great many of these 
elders in Israel, soon after courting these young ladies, and old ladies, and mid- 
dle-aged ladies, and having them sealed to them, want to have a bill of divorce. 
I have told them from the beginning that sealing men and women for time and 
all eternity is one of the ordinances of the House of God, and that I never wanted 
a farthing for sealing them, nor for officiating in any of the ordinances of God's 
house. But when you ask for a bill of divorce, I intend that you shall pay for it. 
That keeps me in spending money, besides enabling me to give hundreds of dol- 
lars to the poor, and buy butter, eggs, and little notions for women and children, 
and otherwise use it where it does good. You may think this a singular feature 
of the Gospel, but I cannot exactly say that this is in the Gospel." 3 

1 " Having control of the tithing, and possessing unlimited credit, he has added 
' house to house and field to field,' while every one knew that he had no personal enter- 
prises sufficient to enable him to meet anything like the current expenses of his numer- 
ous wives and children. As trustee in trust he renders no account of the funds that 
come into his hands, but tells the faithful that they are at perfect liberty to examine the 
books at any moment." — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 665. 

2 " Polygamy," p. 484. 

3 Deseret News, March 20, 1861. 



578 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



For such an openly jolly old hypocrite one can scarcely resist 
the feeling that he would like to pass around the hat. 

We have seen how Young gave himself control of a valuable 
canon. That was only the beginning of such acquisitions. The 
territorial legislature of Utah was continually making special 
grants to him. Among them may be mentioned the control of 
City Creek Canon (said to have been worth $10,000 a year) on 
payment of $500; of the waters of Mill Creek; exclusive right to 
Kansas Prairie as a herd-ground ; the whole of Cache Valley for a 
herd-ground ; Rush Valley for a herd-ground ; rights to establish 
ferries; an appropriation of $2500 for an academy in Salt Lake 
City (which was not built), etc. 1 

Young's holdings of real estate were large, not only in Salt 
Lake City, but in almost every county in the territory. 2 Besides 
city lots and farm lands, he owned grist and saw mills, and he took 
care that his farms were well cultivated and that his mills made 
fine flour. 3 

As trustee in trust for the church Young had control of all 
the church property and income, practically without responsibility 
or oversight. Mrs. Waite (writing in 1866) said that attempts for 
many years by the General Conference to procure a balance sheet 
of receipts and expenditures had failed, and that the accounts in 
the tithing office, such as they were, were kept by clerks who were 
the leading actors in the Salt Lake Theatre, owned by Young. 4 
It was openly charged that, in 1852, Young "balanced his 
account" with the church by having the clerk credit him with 
the amount due by him, "for services rendered," and that, in 1867, 
he balanced his account again by crediting himself with $967,000. 
A committee appointed to investigate the accounts of Young after 

1 Here is the text of one of these acts : " Be it ordained by the General Assembly 
of the State of Deseret that Brigham Young has the sole control of City Creek and 
Cafion; and that he pay into the public treasury the sum of $500 therefor. Dec. 9, 1850." 

2 " For several years past the agent of the church, A. M. Musser, has been engaged 
in securing legal deeds for all the property the prophet claims, and by this he will be 
able to secure in his lifetime to his different families such property as will render them 
independent at his death. The building of the Pacific Railroad is said to have yielded 
him about a quarter of a million." — " Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 666. 

3 " His position secured him also many valuable presents. From a barrel of brandy 
down to an umbrella, Brigham receives courteously and remembers the donors with 
increased kindness. I saw one man make him a present of ten fine milch cows." — 
Hyde, " Mormonism," p. 165. 

4 "The Mormon Prophet," pp. 148-149. 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DEATH — HIS CHARACTER 579 



his death reported to the Conference of October, 1878, that "for 
the sole purpose of preserving it from the spoliation of the enemy," 
he " had transferred certain property from the possession of the 
church to his own individual possession," but that it had been 
transferred back again. 

Young's will divided his wives and children into nineteen 
"classes," and directed his executors to pay to each such a sum 
as might be necessary for their comfortable support; the word 
"marriage" in the will to mean "either by ceremony before a 
lawful magistrate, or according to the order of the Church of 
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or by their cohabitation in con- 
formity to our custom." 

On June 14, 1879, Emmeline A. Young, on behalf of herself 
and the heirs at law, began a suit against the executors of Young's 
estate, charging that they had improperly appropriated $200,000 ; 
had improperly allowed nearly $1,000,000 to John Taylor as 
trustee in trust to the church, less a credit of $300,000 for Young's 
services as trustee ; and that they claimed the power, as members 
of the Apostles' Quorum, to dispose of all the testator's property 
and to disinherit any heir who refused to submit. This suit was 
compromised in the following September, the seven persons join- 
ing in it executing a release on payment of $75,000. A suit which 
the church had begun against the heirs and executors was also 
discontinued. The Salt Lake Herald (Mormon) of October 5, 
1879, said, "The adjustment is far preferable to a continuance of 
the suit, which was proving not only expensive, but had become 
excessively annoying to many people, was a large disturbing ele- 
ment in the community, and was rapidly descending into paths 
that nobody here cares to see trodden." 

Just how many wives Brigham Young had, in the course of his 
life, would depend on his own and others' definition of that term. 
He told Horace Greeley, in 1859: "I have fifteen; I know no one 
who has more. But some of those sealed to me are old ladies, 
whom I regard rather as mothers than wives, but whom I have 
taken home to cherish and support." 1 In 1869, he informed the 
Boston Board of Trade, when that body visited Salt Lake City, 
that he had sixteen wives living, and had lost four, and that forty- 
nine of his children were living then. " He was," says Beadle, 

1 "Overland Journey," p. 215. 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



" sealed on the spiritual wife system to more women than any one 
can count ; all over Mormondom are pious old widows, or wives 
of Gentiles and apostates, who hope to rise at the last day and 
claim a celestial share in Brigham." J. Hyde said that he knew of 
about twenty-five wives with whom Brigham lived. The following 
list is made up from " Pictures and Biographies of Brigham Young 
and his Wives," published by J. H. Crockwell of Salt Lake City, 
by authority of Young's eldest son and of seven of his wives, but 
is not complete : — 



Name 


Date of Marriage 


Number of 
Children 


Mary Ann Angell 1 . 


February, 1834. Ohio 


6 


Louisa Beman 2 


April, 1 841. Nauvoo 


4 


Mrs. Lucy Decker Seely . 


June, 1842. Nauvoo 


7 


H. E. C. Campbell .... 


November, 1843. Nauvoo 


1 


Augusta Adams .... 


November, 1843. Nauvoo 





Clara Decker 


May, 1844. Nauvoo 


5 


Clara C. Ross 


September, 1844. Nauvoo 


4 


Emily Dow Partridge 2 


September, 1844. Nauvoo 


7 


Susan Snively 


November, 1844. Nauvoo 





Olive Grey Frost 2 


February, 1845. Nauvoo 





Emmeline Free .... 


April, 1845. Nauvoo 





Margaret Pierce .... 


April, 1845. Nauvoo 


1 


N. K. T. Carter .... 


January, 1846. Nauvoo 





Ellen Rockwood , 


January, 1846. Nauvoo 





Maria Lawrence 2 


January, 1846. Nauvoo 





Martha Bowker .... 


January, 1846. Nauvoo 





Margaret M. Alley .... 


January, 1846. Nauvoo 


2 


Lucy Bigelow 


March, 1847. (?) 


3 


Z. D. Huntington 2 .... 


March, 1847 (?)• Nauvoo 


1 


Eliza K. Snow 2 .... 


June, 1849. S. L. C. 





Eliza Burgess 


October, 1850. S. L. C. 


1 


Harriet Barney 


October, 1850. S. L. C. 


1 


Harriet A. Folsom .... 


January, 1863. S. L. C. 





Mary Van Cott . . 


January, 1865. S. L. C. 


1 


Ann Eliza Webb .... 


April, 1868. S. L. C. 






Young's principal houses in Salt Lake City stood at the south- 
eastern corner of the block adjoining the Temple block, and desig- 
nated on the map as block 8. The largest building, occupying the 

1 His first wife died 1832. 2 Joseph Smith's widows. 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DEATH — HIS CHARACTER 581 



corner, was called the Beehive House ; connected with this was a 
smaller building in which were Young's private offices, the tithing 
office, etc ; and next to this was a building partly of stone, called 
the Lion House, taking its name from the figure of a lion sculp- 
tured on its front, representing Young's title "The Lion of the 
Lord." When J. Hyde wrote, seventeen or eighteen of Young's 
wives dwelt in the Lion House, and the Beehive House became 
his official residence. 1 Individual wives were provided for else- 
where. His legal wife lived in what was called the White House, 
a few hundred yards from his official home. His well-beloved 
Amelia lived in another house half a block distant ; another favor- 
ite, just across the street; Emmeline, on the same block; and not 
far away the latest acquisition to his harem. 

Young's life in his later years was a very orderly one, although 
he was not methodical in arranging his office hours and attending to 
his many duties. Rising before eight a.m., he was usually in his 
office at nine, transacting business with his secretary, and was 
ready to receive callers at ten. So many were the people who had 
occasion to see him, and so varied were the matters that could be 
brought to his attention, that many hours would be devoted to 
these callers if other engagements did not interfere. Once a year 
he made a sort of visit of state to all the principal settlements 
in the territory, accompanied by counsellors, apostles, and Bishops, 
and sometimes by a favorite wife. Shorter excursions of the same 
kind were made at other times. Each settlement was expected to 
give him a formal greeting, and this sometimes took the form of a 
procession with banners, such as might have been prepared for a 
conquering hero. 

1 The Beehive House is still the official residence of the head of the church, and in 
it President Snow was living at the time of his death. The office building is still 
devoted to office uses, and the Lion House now furnishes temporary quarters to the 
Latter-Day Saints' College. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



SOCIAL ASPECTS OF POLYGAMY 

There was something compulsory about all phases of life in 
Utah during Brigham Young's regime — the form of employment 
for the men, the domestic regulations of the women, the church 
duties each should perform, and even the location in the terri- 
tory which they should call their home. Not only did large 
numbers of the foreign immigrants find themselves in debt to the 
church on their arrival, and become compelled in this way to labor 
on the "public works" as they might be ordered, but the skilled 
mechanics who brought their tools with them in most cases found 
on their arrival that existence in Utah meant a contest with the 
soil for food. Even when a mechanic obtained employment at his 
trade it was in the ruder branches. 

Mormon authorities have always tried to show that Americans 
have predominated in their community. Tullidge classes the 
population in this order : Americans, English, Scandinavian (these 
claim one-fifth of the Mormon population of Utah), Scotch, Welsh, 
Germans, and a few Irish, French, Italians, and Swiss. The com- 
bination of new-comers and the emigrants from Nauvoo made a 
rude society of fanatics, 1 before whom there was held out enough 
prospect of gain in land values (scarcely one of the immigrants had 
ever been a landowner) to overcome a good deal of the discontent 
natural to their mode of life, and who, in religious matters, were 
held in control by a priesthood, against whom they could not rebel 
without endangering that hope of heaven which had induced them 
to journey across the ocean. There are roughness and lawless- 
ness in all frontier settlements, but this Mormon community dif- 

1 "I have discovered thus early (1852) that little deference is paid to women. 
Repeatedly, in my long walk to our boarding house, I was obliged to retreat back from 
the [street] crossing places and stand on one side for men to cross over. There are said 
to be a great many of the lower order of English here, and this rudeness, so unusual with 
our countrymen, may proceed from them." — Mrs. Ferris, " Life among the Mormons." 

582 



SOCIAL ASPECTS OF POLYGAMY 



583 



fered from all other gatherings of new population in the American 
West. It did not migrate of its own accord, attracted by a fertile 
soil or precious ores ; it was induced to migrate, not without mis- 
representation concerning material prospects, it is true, but mainly 
because of the hope that by doing so it would share in the bless- 
ings and protection of a Zion. The gambling hell and the dance 
hall, which form principal features of frontier mining settlements, 
were wanting in Salt Lake City, and the absence of the brothel 
was pointed to as evidence of the moral effect of polygamy. 

The system of plural marriages left its impress all over the 
home life of the territory. Many of the Mormon leaders, as we 
have seen, had more wives than one when they made their first 
trip across the plains, and the practice of polygamy, while denied 
on occasion, was not concealed from the time the settlement was 
made in the valley to the date of its public proclamation. In the 
early days, a man with more than one wife provided for them ac- 
cording to his means. Young began with quarters better than the 
average, but modest in their way, and finally occupied the big 
buildings which cost him many thousands of dollars. If a man 
with several wives had the means to do so, he would build a long, 
low dwelling, with an outside door for each wife, and thus house 
all under the same roof in a sort of separate barracks. When 
Gunnison wrote, in 1852, there were many instances in which 
more than one wife shared the same house when it contained only 
one apartment, but he said : " It is usual to board out the extra 
ones, who most frequently pay their own way by sewing, and other 
female employments. " Mrs. Ferris wrote: "The mass of the 
dwellings are small, low, and hutlike. Some of them literally 
swarmed with women and children, and had an aspect of extreme 
want of neatness. . . . One family, in which there were two wives, 
was living in a small hut — three children very sick [with scarlet 
fever] — two beds and a cook-stove in the same room, creating the 
air of a pest-house." 1 

Hyde, describing the city in 1857, tnus enumerated the home 
accommodations of some of the leaders : — 

" A very pretty house on the east side was occupied by the late J. M. Grant 
and his five wives. A large barrack-like house on the corner is tenanted by Ezra 
T. Benson and his four ladies. A large but mean-looking house to the west was 

1 "Life among the Mormons," pp. Hi, 145. 



5 8 4 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



inhabited by the late Parley P. Pratt and his nine wives. In that long, dirty row 
of single rooms, half hidden by a very beautiful orchard and garden, lived Dr. 
Richard and his eleven wives. Wilford Woodruff and five wives reside in another 
large house still further west. O. Pratt and some four or five wives occupy an 
adjacent building. Looking toward the north, we espy a whole block covered 
with houses, barns, gardens, and orchards. In these dwell H. C. Kimball and 
his eighteen or twenty wives, their families and dependents." 1 

Horace Greeley, prejudiced as he was in favor of the Mormons 
when he visited Salt Lake City in 1859, was forced to observe: — 

" The degradation (or, if you please, the restriction) of woman to the single 
office of childbearing and its accessories is [an inevitable consequence of the 
system here paramount. I have not observed a sign in the streets, an advertise- 
ment in the journals, of this Mormon metropolis, whereby a woman proposes to 
do anything whatever. No Mormon has ever cited to me his wife's or any 
woman's opinion on any subject ; no Mormon woman has been introduced or 
spoken to me ; and, though I have been asked to visit Mormons in their houses, 
no one has spoken of his wife (or wives) desiring to see me, or his desiring me 
to make her (or their) acquaintance, or voluntarily indicated the existence of such 
a being or beings." 2 

Woman's natural jealousy, and the suffering that a loving wife 
would endure when called upon to share her husband's affection 
and her home with other women, would seem to form a sort of 
natural check to polygamous marriages. But in Utah this check 
was overcome both by the absolute power of the priesthood over 
their flock, and by the adroit device of making polygamy not 
merely permissive, but essential to eternal salvation. That the 
many wives of even so exalted a prophet as Brigham Young could 
become rebellious is shown by the language employed by him 
in his discourse of September 21, 1856, of which the following will 
suffice as a specimen : — 

" Men will say, ' My wife, though a most excellent woman, has not seen a 
happy day since I took my second wife ; no, not a happy day for a year.' . . . 
I wish my women to understand that what I am going to say is for them, as well 
as all others, and I want those who are here to tell their sisters, yes, all the women 
in this community, and then write it back to the states, and do as you please with 
it. I am going to give you from this time till the 6th day of October next for re- 

1 " Mormonism," p. 34. The number of wives of the church leaders decreased in 
later years. Beadle, giving the number of wives " supposed to appertain to each " in 
1882, credits President Taylor with four (three having died), and the Apostles with an 
average of three each, Erastus Snow having five, and four others only two each.' 

2 "Overland Journey," p. 217. 



SOCIAL ASPECTS OF POLYGAMY 



58 S 



flection, that you may determine whether you wish to stay with your husbands or 
not, and then I am going to set every woman at liberty, and say to them, ' Now 
go your way, my women with the rest ; go your way. 1 And my wives have got 
to do one of two things ; either round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions 
of this world, and live their religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them 
about me. I will go into heaven alone, rather than have scratching and fighting 
all around me. I will set all at liberty. 1 What, first wife too ? ' Yes, I will liber- 
ate you all. I know what my women will say ; they will say, ' You can have as 
many women as you please, Brigham.' But I want to go somewhere and do 
something to get rid of the whiners. . . . Sisters, I am not joking." 1 

Grant, on the same day, in connection with his presentation of 
the doctrine of blood atonement, declared that there was " scarcely 
a mother in Israel" who would not, if they could, "break asunder 
the cable of the Church in Christ ; and they talk it to their hus- 
bands, to their daughters, and to their neighbors, and say that 
they have not seen a week's happiness since they became ac- 
quainted with that law, or since their husbands took a second 
wife." 2 The coarse and plain-spoken H. C. Kimball, in a discourse 
in the Tabernacle, November 9, 1856, thus defined the duty of 
polygamous wives, " It is the duty of a woman to be obedient to 
her husband, and, unless she is, I would not give a damn for all 
her queenly right or authority, nor for her either, if she will quar- 
rel and lie about the work of God and the principles of plurality." 3 

Gentile observers were amazed, in the earlier days of Utah, to 
see to what lengths the fanatical teachings of the church officers 
would be accepted by women. Thus Mrs. Ferris found that the 
explanation of the willingness of many young women in Utah to 
be married to venerable church officers, who already had harems, 
was their belief that they could only be " saved " if married or 
sealed to a faithful Saint, and that an older man was less likely to 
apostatize, and so carry his wives to perdition with him, than a 
young one; therefore "it became an object with these silly fools 
to get into the harems of the priests and elders." 

If this advantage of the church officers in the selection of new 
wives did not avail, other means were employed, 4 as in the noto- 
rious San Pete case. The officers remaining at home did not 
hesitate to insist on a fair division of the spoils (that is, the 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 55. 2 Ibid., p. 52. 

8 Deseret News, Vol. VI, p. 291. 

4 Conan Doyle's story, " A Study in Scarlet," is founded on the use of this power. 



586 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



marriageable immigrants), as is shown by the following remarks of 
Heber C. Kimball to some missionaries about starting out : " Let 
truth and righteousness be your motto, and don't go into the 
world for anything but to preach the Gospel, build up the Kingdom 
of God, and gather the sheep into the fold. You are sent out as 
shepherds to gather the sheep together ; and remember that they 
are not your sheep ; they belong to Him that sends you. Then 
don't make a choice of any of those sheep ; don't make selections 
before they are brought home and put into the fold. You under- 
stand that. Amen." Mr. Ferris thus described the use of his 
priestly power made by Wilford Woodruff, who, as head of the 
church in later years, gave out the advice about abandoning 
polygamy : " Woodruff has a regular system of changing his 
harem. He takes in one or more young girls, and so manages, 
after he tires of them, that they are glad to ask for a divorce, after 
which he beats the bush for recruits. He took a fresh one, about 
fourteen years old, in March, 1853, and will probably get rid of 
her in the course of the ensuing summer." 1 

Mrs. Waite thus relates a conversation she had with a Mormon 
wife about her husband going into polygamy : — 

" 1 Oh, it is hard,' she said, ' very hard ; but no matter, we must bear it. It is 
a correct principle, and there is no salvation without it. We had one [wife] but 
it was so hard, both for my husband and myself, that we could not endure it, and 
she left us at the end of seven months. She had been with us as a servant several 
months, and was a good girl ; but as soon as she was made a wife she became 
insolent, and told me she had as good a right to the house and things as I had, 
and you know that didn't suit me well. But, 1 continued she, 'I wish we had 
kept her, and I had borne everything, for we have got to have one, and don't you 
think it would be pleasanter to have one you had known than a stranger ? ' " 2 

The voice which the first wife had in the matter was defined in 
the Seer (Vol. I, p. 41). If she objected, she could state her objec- 
tion to President Young, who, if he found the reason sufficient, 
could forbid the marriage ; but if he considered that her reason 
was not good, then the marriage could take place, and " he [the 
husband] will be justified, and she will be condemned, because she 
did not give them unto him as Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, 

1 " Utah and the Mormons," p. 255. 

2 " The Mormon Prophet," p. 260. Many accounts of the feeling of first wives 
regarding polygamy may be found in this book and in Mrs. Stenhouse's " Tell it All." 



SOCIAL ASPECTS OF POLYGAMY 



587 



and as Rachel and Leah gave Bilhah and Zilpah to their husband, 
Jacob." Young's dictatorship in the choice of wives was equally 
absolute. "No man in Utah," said the Seer(yo\. I, p. 31), "who 
already has a wife, and who may desire to obtain another, has any 
right to make any proposition of marriage to a lady until he has 
consulted the President of the whole church, and through him 
obtained a revelation from God as to whether it would be pleasing 
in His sight." 

The authority of the priesthood was always exerted to compel 
at least every prominent member of the church to take more wives 
than one. "For a man to be confined to one woman is a small 
business," said Kimball in the Tabernacle, on April 4, 1857. This 
influence coerced Stenhouse to take as his second wife a fourteen- 
year-old daughter of Parley P. Pratt, although he loved his legal 
wife, and she had told him that she would not live with him if he 
married again, and although his intimate friend, Superintendent 
Cooke, of the Overland Stage Company, to save him, threatened 
to prosecute him under the law against bigamy if he yielded. 1 
Another illustration, given by Mrs. Waite, may be cited. Kim- 
ball, calling on a Prussian immigrant named Taussig one day, 
asked him how he was doing and how many wives he had, and on 
being told that he had two, replied, " That is not enough. You 
must take a couple more. I'll send them to you." The narrative 
continues : — 

" On the following evening, when the brother returned home, he found two 
women sitting there. His first wife said, ' Brother Taussig ' (all the women call 
their husbands brother), 'these are the Sisters Pratt.' They were two widows oi 
Parley P. Pratt. One of the ladies, Sarah, then said, 'Brother Taussig, Brother 
Kimball told us to call on you, and you know what for.' 'Yes, ladies,' replied 
Brother Taussig, 'but it is a very hard task for me to marry two.' The other 
remarked. ' Brother Kimball told us you were doing a very good business and 
could support more women.' Sarah then took up the conversation, 'Well, 
Brother Taussig. I want to get married anyhow.' The good brother replied, 
' Well, ladies. I will see what I can do and let you know. ' " 2 

Brother Taussig compromised the matter with the Bishop ot 
his ward by marrying Sarah, but she did not like her new home, 

1 When Mr. and Mrs. Stenhouse left the church at the time of the "New Move- 
ment," their daughter, who was a polygamous wife of Brigham Young's son, decided 
with the church and refused even to speak with her parents. 

2 "The Mormon Prophet,'" p. 258. 



588 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



and he was allowed to divorce her on payment of $10 to Brigham 
Young ! 

Each polygamous family was, of course, governed in accord- 
ance with the character of its head : a kind man would treat all 
his wives kindly, however decided a preference he might show for 
one ; and under a brute all would be unhappy. Young, in his ear- 
lier days at Salt Lake City, used to assemble all his family for 
prayers, and have a kind word for each of the women, and all ate 
at a common table after his permanent residences were built. 
" Brigham's wives," says Hyde, "although poorly clothed and 
hard worked, are still very infatuated with their system, very 
devout in their religion, very devoted to their children. They con- 
tent themselves with his kindness as they cannot obtain his love." 1 
He kept no servants, the wives performing all the household work, 
and one of them acting as teacher to her own and the others' chil- 
dren. As the excuse for marriage with the Mormons is childbear- 
ing, 2 the older wives were practically discarded, taking the place of 
examples of piety and of spiritual advisers. 

A summing up of the many-sided evils of polygamy was thus 
presented by President Cleveland in his first annual message : — 

" The strength, the perpetuity, and the destiny of the nation rests upon our 
homes, established by the law of God, guarded by parental care, regulated by 
parental authority, and sanctified by parental love. These are not the homes of 
polygamy. 

" The mothers of our land, who rule the nation as they mould the characters 
and guide the actions of their sons, live according to God's holy ordinances, and 
each, secure and happy in the exclusive love of the father of her children, sheds 
the warm light of true womanhood, unperverted and unpolluted, upon all within 

1 " Mormonism," p. 164. 

2 How far this doctrine was not observed may be noted in the following remarks of 
H. C. Kimball in the Tabernacle, on February 1, 1857: "They [his wives] have got to 
live their religion, serve their God, and do right as well as myself. Suppose that I lose 
the whole of them before I go into the spiritual world, but that I have been a good, 
faithful man all the days of my life, and lived my religion, and had favor with God, and 
was kind to them, do you think I will be destitute there ? No. The Lord says there 
are more there than there are here. They have been increasing there; they increase 

. there a great deal faster than they do here, because there is no obstruction. They do not 
call upon the doctors to kill their offspring. In this world very many of the doctors are 
studying to diminish the human race. In the spiritual world ... we will go to Brother 
Joseph . . . and he will say to us, ' Come along, my boys, we will give you a good suit 
of clothes. Where are your wives?' 'They are back yonder; they would not follow us.' 
' Never mind,' says Joseph, ' here are thousands; have all you want.' " — Journal of Dis- 
courses, Vol. IV, p. 209. 



SOCIAL ASPECTS OF POLYGAMY 



589 



her pure and wholesome family circle. These are not the cheerless, crushed, and 
unwomanly mothers of polygamy. 

" The fathers of our families are the best citizens of the Republic. Wife 
and children are the sources of patriotism, and conjugal and parental affection 
beget devotion to the country. The man who, undefiled with plural marriage, is 
surrounded in his single home with his wife and children, has a status in the coun- 
try which inspires him with respect for its laws and courage for its defence. 
These are not the fathers of polygamous families." 



CHAPTER XXIV 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY— STATEHOOD 

The first measure " to punish and prevent the practice of polyg- 
amy in the Territories of the United States" was introduced in 
the House of Representatives by Mr. Morrill of Vermont (Bill 
No. 7) at the first session of the 36th .Congress, on February 15, 
i860. It contained clauses annulling some of the acts of the ter- 
ritorial legislature of Utah, including the one incorporating the 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This bill was 
reported by the Judiciary Committee on March 14, the committee 
declaring that " no argument was deemed necessary to prove that 
an act could be regarded as criminal which is so treated by the 
universal concurrence of the Christian and civilized world," and 
characterizing the church incorporation act as granting ' 'such 
monstrous powers and arrogant assumptions as are at war with 
the genius of our government." The bill passed the House on 
April 5, by a vote of 149 to 60, was favorably reported to the 
Senate by Mr. Bayard from the Judiciary Committee on June 13, 
but did not pass that House. 

Mr. Morrill introduced his bill by unanimous consent in the 
next Congress (on April 8, 1862), and it was passed by the House 
on April 28. Mr. Bayard, from the Judiciary Committee, reported 
it back to the Senate on June 3 with amendments. He explained 
that the House Bill punished not only polygamous marriages, but 
cohabitation without marriage. The committee recommended lim- 
iting the punishment to bigamy — a fine not to exceed $500 and 
imprisonment for not more than five years. Another amendment 
limited the amount of real estate which a church corporation could 
hold in the territories to $50,000. The bill passed the Senate 
with the negative votes of only the two California senators, and 
the House accepted the amendments. Lincoln signed it. 

590 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY — STATEHOOD 591 



Nothing practical was accomplished by this legislation. In 
1867 George A. Smith and John Taylor, the presiding officers of 
the Utah legislature, petitioned Congress to repeal this act, set- 
ting forth as one reason that "the judiciary of this territory has 
not. up to the present time, tried any case under said law, though 
repeatedly urged to do so by those who have been anxious to test 
its constitutionality." The House Judiciary Committee reported 
that this was a practical request for the sanctioning of polygamy, 
and said : " Your committee has not been able to ascertain the 
reason why this law has not been enforced. The humiliating fact 
is, however, apparent that the law is at present practically a dead 
letter in the Territory of Utah, and that the gravest necessity 
exists for its enforcement ; and, in the opinion of the committee, 
if it be through the fault or neglect of the judiciary of that terri- 
torv that the laws are not enforced, the judges should be removed 
without delay ; and that, if the failure to execute the law arises 
from other causes, it becomes the duty of the President of the 
United States to see that the law is faithfully executed." 1 

In June, 1866, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio obtained unani- 
mous consent to introduce a bill enacting radical legislation con- 
cerning such marriages as were performed and sanctioned by the 
Mormon church, but it did not pass. Senator Cragin of New 
Hampshire soon introduced a similar bill, but it, too, failed to 
become a law. 

In 1869, in the first Congress that met under President Grant, 
Mr. Cullom of Illinois introduced in the House the bill aimed at 
polygamy that was designated by his name. This bill was the 
practical starting-point of the anti-polygamous legislation subse- 
quently enacted, as over it was aroused the feeling — in its behalf 
in the East and against it in Utah — that resulted in practical 
legislation. 

Delegate Hooper made the leading speech against it, summing 
up his objections as follows : — 

u (1) That under our constitution we are entitled to be protected in the full 
and free enjoyment of our religious faith. 

•• (2) That our views of the marriage relation are an essential portion of our 
religious faith. 

(3) That, in conceding the cognizance of the marriage relation as within 
1 House Report No. 27, 2d Session, 39th Congress. 



592 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



the province of church regulations, we are practically in accord with all other 
Christian denominations. 

" (4) That in our view of the marriage relation as a part of our religious 
belief we are entitled to immunity from persecution under the constitution, if such 
views are sincerely held ; that, if such views are erroneous, their eradication must 
be by argument and not by force." 

The bill, greatly amended, passed the House on March 23, 
1870, by a vote of 94 to 32. The news of this action caused 
perhaps the greatest excitement ever known in Utah. There 
was no intention on the part of the Mormons to make any com- 
promise on the question, and they set out to defeat the bill out- 
right in the Senate. Meetings of Mormon women were gotten up 
in all parts of the territory, in which they asserted their devotion 
to the doctrine. The " Reformers," including Stenhouse, Harri- 
son, Tullidge, and others, and merchants like Walker Brothers, 
Colonel Kahn, and T. Marshall, joined in a call for a mass-meeting 
at which all expressed disapproval of some of its provisions, like 
the one requiring men already having polygamous wives to break 
up their families. Mr. Godbe went to Washington while the bill 
was before the House, and worked hard for its modification. The 
bill did not pass the Senate, a leading argument against it being 
the assumed impossibility of convicting polygamists under it with 
any juries drawn in Utah. 

The arrest of Brigham Young and others under the act to pun- 
ish adulterers, and the proceedings against them before Judge 
McKean in 1871, have been noted. At the same term of the 
court Thomas Hawkins, an English immigrant, was convicted of 
the same charge on the evidence of his wife, and sentenced to 
imprisonment for three years and to pay a fine of $500. In pass- 
ing sentence, Judge McKean told the prisoner that, if he let him 
off with a fine, the fine would be paid out of other funds than his 
own ; that he would thus go free, and that " those men who mis- 
lead the people would make you and thousands of others believe 
that God had sent the money to pay the fine ; that, by a miracle, 
you had been rescued from the authorities of the United States." 

After the passage of the Poland law, in 1874, George Rey- 
nolds, Brigham Young's private secretary, was convicted of bigamy 
under the law of 1862, but was set free by the Supreme Court of 
the territory on the ground of illegality in the drawing of the grand 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY— STATEHOOD 593 



jury. In the following year he was again convicted, and was sen- 
tenced to imprisonment for two years and to pay a fine of $500. 
The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which 
rendered its decision in October, 1878, unanimously sustaining the 
conviction, except that Justice Field objected to the admission of 
one witness's testimony. 

In its decision the court stated the question raised to be 
" whether religious belief can be accepted as a justification for 
an overt act made criminal by the law of the land." Next came a 
discussion of views of religious freedom, as bearing on the meaning 
of " religion " in the federal constitution, leading up to the conclu- 
sion that " Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere 
opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation 
of social duties, or subversive of good order." The court then 
traced the view of polygamy in England and the United States 
from the time when it was made a capital offence in England (as 
it was in Virginia in 1788), declaring that, "in the face of all this 
evidence, it is impossible to believe that the constitutional guaranty 
of religious freedom was intended to prohibit legislation in respect 
to this most important feature of social life." The opinion con- 
tinued as follows : — 

" In our opinion, the statute immediately under consideration is within the 
legislative power of Congress. It is constitutional and valid as prescribing a rule 
of action for all those residing in the Territories, and in places over which the 
United States has exclusive control. This being so, the only question which 
remains is, whether those who make polygamy a part of their religion are excepted 
from the operation of the statute. If they are, then those who do not make po- 
lygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished, while 
those who do, must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new 
element into criminal law. Laws are made for the government of actions, and, 
while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with 
practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of 
religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under 
which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice ? Or, if a wife religiously 
believed it was her duty to burn herself on the funeral pile of her dead husband, 
would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her 
belief into practice ? 

" So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion 
of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. 
Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief ? 
To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief supe- 

2Q 



594 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



rior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law 
unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances. 

" A criminal intent is generally an element of crime, but every man is pre- 
sumed to intend the necessary and legitimate consequences of what he knowingly 
does. Here the accused knew he had been once married, and that his first wife 
was living. He also knew that his second marriage was forbidden by law. When, 
therefore, he married the second time, he is presumed to have intended to break 
the law, and the breaking of the law is the crime. Every act necessary to con- 
stitute the crime was knowingly done, and the crime was therefore knowingly 
committed. 1 

P. T. Van Zile of Michigan, who became district attorney of 
the territory in 1878, tried John Miles, a polygamist, for bigamy, 
in 1879, and he was convicted, the prosecutor taking advantage of 
the fact that the territorial legislature had practically adopted the 
California code, which allowed challenges of jurors for actual bias. 
The principal incident of this trial was the summoning of " Gen- 
eral" Wells, then a counsellor of the church, as a witness, and his 
refusal to describe the dress worn during the ceremonies in the 
Endowment House, and the ceremonies themselves. He gave as 
his excuse, " because I am under moral and sacred obligations to 
not answer, and it is interwoven in my character never to betray a 
friend, a brother, my country, my God, or my religion." He was 
sentenced to pay a fine of $100, and to two days' imprisonment. 
On his release, the City Council met him at the prison door and 
escorted him home, accompanied by bands of music and a proces- 
sion made up of the benevolent, fire, and other organizations, and 
delegations from every ward. 

Governor Emery, in his message to the territorial legislature 
of 1878, spoke as plainly about polygamy as any of his predeces- 
sors, saying that it was a grave crime, even if the law against it 
was a dead letter, and characterizing it as an evil endangering the 
peace of society. 

There was a lull in the agitation against polygamy in Congress 
for some years after the contest over the Cullom Bill. In 1878 a 
mass-meeting of women of Salt Lake City opposed to polygamy 
was held there, and an address *' to Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes and 
the women of the United States," and a petition to Congress, were 
adopted, and a committee was appointed to distribute the petition 
throughout the country for signatures. The address set forth that 

1 United States Reports, Otto, Vol. Ill, p. 162. 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY — STATEHOOD 595 



there had been more polygamous marriages in the last year than 
ever before in the history of the Mormon church ; that Endowment 
Houses, under the name of temples, and costing millions, were being 
erected in different parts of the territory, in which the members 
were " sealed and bound by oaths so strong that even apostates will 
not reveal them " ; that the Mormons had the balance of power in 
two territories, and were plotting to extend it ; and asking Congress 
u to arrest the further progress of this evil." 

President Hayes, in his annual message in December, 1879, 
spoke of the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court, 
and said that there was no reason for longer delay in the enforce- 
ment of the law, urging " more comprehensive and searching 
methods " of punishing and preventing polygamy if they were nec- 
essary. He returned to the subject in his message in 1880, say- 
ing : "Polygamy can only be suppressed by taking away the 
political power of the sect which encourages and sustains it. . . . 
I recommend that Congress provide for the government of Utah 
bv a Governor and Judges, or Commissioners, appointed by the 
President and confirmed by the Senate, (or) that the right to vote, 
hold office, or sit on juries in the Territory of Utah be confined to 
those who neither practise nor uphold polygamy." 

President Garfield took up the subject in his inaugural address on 
March 4, 18S1. "The Mormon church," he said, "not only offends 
the moral sense of mankind by sanctioning polygamy, but prevents 
the administration of justice through ordinary instrumentalities of 
law." He expressed the opinion that Congress should prohibit 
polygamy, and not allow "any ecclesiastical organization- to usurp 
in the smallest degree the functions and power of the national gov- 
ernment." President Arthur, in his message in December, 1881, 
referred to the difficulty of securing convictions of persons accused 
of polygamy — "'this odious crime, so revolting to the moral and 
religious sense of Christendom " — and recommended legislation. 

In the spirit of these recommendations, Senator Edmunds 
introduced in the Senate, on December 12, 188 1, a comprehensive 
measure amending the anti-polygamy law of 1862, which, amended 
during the course of the debate, was passed in the Senate on Feb- 
ruary 12, 1882, without a roll-call, 1 and in the House on March 13, 

1 Speeches against the bill were made in the Senate by Brown, Call, Lamar, Mor- 
gan, Pendleton, and Vest. 



596 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



by a vote of 199 to 42, and was approved by the President on 
March 22. This is what is known as the Edmunds law — the 
first really serious blow struck by Congress against polygamy. 

It provided, in brief, that, in the territories, any person who, 
having a husband or wife living, marries another, or marries more 
than one woman on the same day, shall be punished by a fine of 
not more than $500, and by imprisonment, for not more than five 
years ; that a male person cohabiting with more than one woman 
shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and be subject to a fine of not 
more than $300 or to six months' imprisonment, or both ; that in 
any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation, 
a juror may be challenged if he is or has been living in the prac- 
tice of either offence, or if he believes it right for a man to have 
more than one living and undivorced wife at a time, or to cohabit 
with more than one woman ; that the President may have power 
to grant amnesty to offenders, as described, before the passage of 
this act ; that the issue of so-called Mormon marriages born before 
January 1, 1883, be legitimated; that no polygamist shall be enti- 
tled to vote in any territory, or to hold office under the United States ; 
that the President shall appoint in Utah a board of five persons 
for the registry of voters, and the reception and counting of votes. 

To meet the determined opposition to the new law, an amend- 
ment (known as the Edmunds-Tucker law) was enacted in 1887. 
This law, in any prosecution coming under the definition of plural 
marriages, waived the process of subpoena, on affadavit of suffi- 
cient cause, in favor of an attachment ; allowed a lawful husband 
or wife to testify regarding each other ; required every marriage 
certificate in Utah to be signed by the parties and the person 
performing the ceremony, and filed in court; abolished female 
suffrage, and gave suffrage only to males of proper age who regis- 
tered and took an oath, giving the names of their lawful wives, 
and promised to obey the laws of the United States, and especially 
the Edmunds law ; disqualified as a juror or office-holder any 
person who had not taken an oath to support the laws of the 
United States, or who had been convicted under the Edmunds 
law; gave the President power to appoint the judges of the pro- 
bate courts ; 1 provided for escheating to the United States for the 

1 The first territorial legislature which met after the passage of this law passed an 
act practically nullifying such appointments of probate judges, but the governor vetoed 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY — STATEHOOD 



use of the common schools the property of corporations held in 
violation of the act in 1862, except buildings held exclusively for 
the worship of God, the parsonages connected therewith, and 
burial places ; dissolved the corporation called the Perpetual Emi- 
gration Company, and forbade the legislature to pass any law to 
bring persons into the territory ; dissolved the corporation known 
as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and gave the 
Supreme Court of the territory power to wind up its affairs ; and 
annulled all laws regarding the Nauvoo Legion, and all acts of the 
territorial legislature. 

The first members of the Utah commission appointed under 
the Edmunds law were Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota, A. B. 
Carleton of Indiana, A. S. Paddock of Nebraska, G. L. Godfrey 
of Iowa, and J. R. Pettigrew of Arkansas, their appointments 
being dated June 23, 1882. 

The officers of the church and the Mormons as a body met the 
new situation as aggressively as did Brigham Young the approach 
of United States troops. Their preachers and their newspapers 
reiterated the divine nature of the " revelation" concerning polyg- 
amy and its obligatory character, urging the people to stand by 
their leaders in opposition to the new laws. The following extracts 
from " an Epistle from the First Presidency, to the officers and 
members of the church," dated October 6, 1885, will sufficiently 
illustrate the attitude of the church organization : — 

"The war is openly and undisguisedly made upon our religion. To induce 
men to repudiate that, to violate its precepts, and break its solemn covenants, 
every encouragement is given. The man who agrees to discard his wife or 
wives, and to trample upon the most sacred obligations which human beings can 
enter into, escapes imprisonment, and is applauded : while the man who will 
not make this compact of dishonor, who will not admit that his past life has 
been a fraud and a lie, who will not say to the world, 4 1 intended to deceive 
my God, my brethren, and my wives by making covenants I did not expect to 
keep, 1 is, beside being punished to the full extent of the law, compelled to endure 
the reproaches, taunts, and insults of a brutal judge. . . . 

" We did not reveal celestial marriage. We cannot withdraw or renounce it. 
God revealed it, and he has promised to maintain it and to bless those who obey 
it. Whatever fate, then, may threaten us, there is but one course for men of 
God to take ; that is, to keep inviolate the holy covenants they have made in the 

it. In Beaver County, as soon as the appointment of a probate judge by the President 
was announced, the Mormon County Court met and reduced his salary to $5 a year. 



598 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



presence of God and angels. For the remainder, whether it be life or death, 
freedom or imprisonment, prosperity or adversity, we must trust in God. We 
may say, however, if any man or woman expects to enter into the celestial king- 
dom of our God without making sacrifices and without being tested to the very 
uttermost, they have not understood the Gospel. . . . 

" Upward of forty years ago the Lord revealed to his church the principle of 
celestial marriage. The idea of marrying more wives than one was as naturally 
abhorrent to the leading men and women of the church, at that day, as it could 
be to any people. They shrank with dread from the bare thought of entering 
into such relationship. But the command of God was before them in language 
which no faithful soul dare disobey, i For, behold, I reveal unto you a new and 
everlasting covenant ; and if ye abide not that covenant, then ate ye damned ; 
for no one can reject this covenant, and be permitted to enter into my glory. 1 . . . 
Who would suppose that any man, in this land of religious liberty, would presume 
to say to his fellow-man that he had no right to take such steps as he thought 
necessary to escape damnation? Or that Congress would enact a law which 
would present the alternative to religious believers of being consigned to a peni- 
tentiary if they should attempt to obey a law of God which would deliver them 
from damnation?" 

There was a characteristic effort to evade the law as regards 
political rights. The People's Party (Mormon), to get around the 
provision concerning the test oath for voters, issued an address to 
them which said : " The questions that intending voters need 
therefore ask themselves are these : Are we guilty of the crimes 
of said act ; or have we the present intention of committing these 
crimes, or of aiding, abetting, causing or advising any other 
person to commit them. Male citizens who can answer these 
questions in the negative can qualify under the laws as voters or 
office-holders. " 

Two events in 1885 were the cause of so much feeling that 
United States troops were held in readiness for transportation to 
Utah. The first of these was the placing of the United States 
flag at half mast in Salt Lake City, on July 4, over the city hall, 
county court-house, theatre, cooperative store, Deseret News office, 
tithing office, and President Taylor's residence, to show the Mormon 
opinion that the Edmunds law had destroyed liberty. When a 
committee of non-Mormon citizens called at the city hall for an 
explanation of this display, the city marshal said that it was " a 
whim of his," and the mayor ordered the flag raised to its proper 
place. 

In November of that year a Mormon night watchman named 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY— STATEHOOD 599 



McMurrin was shot and severely wounded by a United States 
deputy marshal named Collin. This caused great- feeling, and 
there were rumors that the Mormons threatened to lynch Collin, 
that armed men had assembled to take him out of the officers' 
hands, and that the Mormons of the territory were arming them- 
selves, and were ready at a moment's notice to march into Salt 
Lake City. Federal troops were held in readiness at Eastern 
points, but they were not used. The Salt Lake City Council, on 
December 8, made a report denying the truth of the disquieting 
rumors, and declaring that " at no time in the history of this city 
have the lives and property of its non-Mormon inhabitants been 
more secure than now." 

The records of the courts in L T tah show that the Mormons 
stood ready to obey the teachings of the church at any cost. 
Prosecutions under the Edmunds law began in 1884, and the 
convictions for polygamy or unlawful cohabitation (mostly the 
latter) were as follows in the years named: 3 in 1884, 39 in 1885, 
112 in 1886, 214 in 1SS7, and 100 in 18S8, with 48 in Idaho during 
the same period. Leading men in the church went into hiding — 
M under ground," as it was called — or fled from the territory. As 
to the actual continuance of polygamous marriages, the evidence 
was contradictory. A special report of the Utah Commission in 
1884 expressed the opinion that there had been a decided decrease 
in their number in the cities, and very little decrease in the rural 
districts. Their regular report for that year estimated the number 
of males and females who had entered into that relation at 459. 
The report for 1888 stated that the registration officers gave the 
names of 29 females who, they had good reason to believe, had 
contracted polygamous marriages since the lists were closed in 
June, 1887. As late as 1889 Hans Jespersen was arrested for 
unlawful cohabitation. As his plural marriage was understood to 
be a recent one, the case attracted wide attention, since it was 
expected to prove the insincerity of the church in making the pro- 
test against the Edmunds law principally on the ground that it 
broke up existing families. Jespersen pleaded guilty of adultery 
and polygamy, and was sentenced to imprisonment for eight years. 
In making his plea he said that he was married at the Endowment 
House in Salt Lake City, that he and his wife were the only per- 
sons there, and that he did not know who married them. His wife 



6oo 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



testified that she " heard a voice pronounce them man and wife, 
but didn't see any one nor who spoke." 1 Such were some of the 
methods adopted by the church to set at naught the law. 

But alo'ng with this firm attitude, influences were at work look- 
ing to a change of policy. During the first year of the enforce- 
ment of the law it was on many sides declared a failure, the 
aggressive attitude of the church, and the willingness of its leaders 
to accept imprisonment, hiding, or exile, being regarded by many 
persons in the East as proof that the real remedy for the Utah 
situation was yet to be discovered. The Utah Commission, in their 
earlier reports, combated this idea, and pointed out that the young 
men in the church would grow restive as they saw all the offices 
out of their reach unless they took the test oath, and that they 
" would present an anomaly in human nature if they should fail 
to be strongly influenced against going into a relation which thus 
subjects them to political ostracism, and fixes on them the stigma 
of moral turpitude." How wide this influence was is seen in the 
political statistics of the times. When the Utah Commission 
entered on their duties in August, 1882, almost every office in the 
territory was held by a polygamist. By April, 1884, about 12,000 
voters, male and female, had been disfranchised by the act, and 
of the 135 1 elective officers in the territory not one was a polyga- 
mist, and not one of the municipal officers of Salt Lake City then 
in office had ever been "in polygamy." 

The church leaders at first tried to meet this influence in two 
ways, by open rebuke of all Saints who showed a disposition to 
obey the new laws, and by special honors to those who took their 
punishment. Thus, the Deseret News told the brethren that they 
could not promise to obey the anti-polygamy laws without violating 
obligations that bound them to time and eternity ; and when John 
Sharp, a leading member of the church in Salt Lake City, went 
before the court and announced his intention to obey these laws, 
he was instantly removed from the office of Bishop of his ward. 

The restlessness of the flock showed itself in the breaking down 
of the business barriers set up by the church between Mormons 
and Gentiles; This subject received a good deal of attention in 
the minority report signed by two of the commissioners in 1888. 
They noted the sale of real estate by Mormons to Gentiles against 

1 Report of the Utah Commission for 1890, p. 23. 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY — STATEHOOD 6oi 



the remonstrances of the church, the organization of a Chamber of 
Commerce in Salt Lake City in which Mormons and Gentiles 
worked together, and the union of both elements in the last Fourth 
of July celebration. 

In the spring of 1890, at the General Conference held in Salt 
Lake City, the office of " Prophet, Seer and Revelator and Presi- 
dent " of the church, that had remained vacant since the death of 
John Taylor in 1887, was filled by the election of Wilford Wood- 
ruff, a polygamist who had refused to take the test oath, while 
G. Q. Cannon and Lorenzo Snow, who were disfranchised for the 
same cause, were made respectively counsellor and president of 
the Twelve. 1 Woodruff was born in Connecticut in 1807, became 
a Mormon in 1832, was several times sent on missions to England, 
and had gained so much prominence while the church was at 
Nauvoo that he was the chief dedicator of the Temple there. 
While there, he signed a certificate stating that he knew of no 
other system of marriage in the church but the one-wife system 
then prescribed in the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants." Before 
the date of his promotion, Woodruff had declared that plural mar- 
riages were no longer permitted, and, when he was confronted with 
evidence to the contrary brought out in court, he denied all knowl- 
edge of it, and afterward declared that, in consequence of the evi- 
dence presented, he had ordered the Endowment House to be taken 
down. 

Governor Thomas, in his report for 1890, expressed the opinion 
that the church, under its system, could in only one way define its 
position regarding polygamy, and that was by a public declaration 
by the head of the church, or by action by a conference, and 
he added, " There is no reason to believe that any earthly power 
can extort from the church any such declaration." The governor 
was mistaken, not in measuring the purpose of the church, but in 
foreseeing all the influences that were now making themselves 
felt. 

The revised statutes of Idaho at this time contained a provi- 
sion (Sec. 509) disfranchising all polygamists and debarring from 
office all polygamists, and all persons who counselled or ericour- 

1 Lorenzo Snow was elected president of the church on September 13, 1898, eleven 
days after the death of President Woodruff, and he held that position until his death, 
which occurred on October 10, 1901. 



6<D2 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



aged any one to ^commit polygamy. The constitutionality of this 
section was argued before the United States Supreme Court, which, 
on February 3, 1890, decided that it was constitutional. The anti- 
polygamists in Utah saw in this decision a means of attacking the 
Mormon belief even more aggressively than had been done by 
means of the Edmunds Bill. An act was drawn (Governor 
Thomas and ex-Governor West taking it to Washington) providing 
that no person living in plural or celestial marriage, or teaching 
the same, or being a member of, or a contributor to, any organiza- 
tion teaching it, or assisting in such a marriage, should be entitled 
to vote, to serve as a juror, or to hold office, a test oath forming a 
part of the act. Senator Cullom introduced this bill in the upper 
House and Mr. Struble of Iowa in the House of Representatives. 
The House Committee on Territories (the Democrats in the nega- 
tive) voted to report the bill, amended so as to make it applicable 
to all the territories. This proposed legislation caused great excite- 
ment in Mormondom, and petitions against its passage were hurried 
to Washington, some of these containing non-Mormon signatures. 

As a further menace to the position of the church, the United 
States Supreme Court, on May 19, affirmed the decision of the 
lower court confiscating the property of the Mormon church, and 
declaring that church organization to be an organized rebellion ; 
and on June 21, the Senate passed Senator Edmunds's bill disposing 
of the real estate of the church for the benefit of the school fund. 1 

The Mormon authorities now realized that the public sentiment 
of the country, as expressed in the federal law, had them in its 
grasp. They must make some concession to this public sentiment, 
or surrender all their privileges as citizens and the wealth of their 
church organization. Agents were hurried to Washington to im- 
plore the aid of Mr. Blaine in checking the progress of the Cullom 
Bill, and at home the head of the church made the concession in 
regard to polygamy which secured the admission of the territory 
as a state. 

On September 25, 1890, Woodruff, as President of the church, 
issued a proclamation addressed " to whom it may concern," which 
struck out of the necessary beliefs and practices of the Mormon 
church, the practice of polygamy. 

1 After the admission of Utah as a state, Congress passed an act restoring the 
property to the church. 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY — STATEHOOD 603 



This important step was taken, not in the form of a " revela- 
tion," but simply as a proclamation or manifesto. It began with 
a solemn declaration that the allegation of the Utah Commission that 
plural marriages were still being solemnized was false, and the 
assertion that " we are not preaching polygamy, nor permitting 
any person to enter into its practice." The closing and impor- 
tant part of the proclamation was as follows : — 

" Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress, which laws have been 
pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my inten- 
tion to submit to these laws, and to use my influence with the members of the 
church over which I preside to have them do likewise. 

" There is nothing in my teachings to the church, or in those of my associates, 
during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or en- 
courage polygamy, and when any elder of the church has used language which 
appeared to convey any such teachings he has been promptly reproved. 

" And now I publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-Day Saints is to 
refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land. 11 

On October 6, the General Conference of the church, on motion 
of Lorenzo Snow, unanimously adopted the following resolution : — 

" I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as President of the Church of 
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present 
time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized, 
by virtue of his position, to issue the manifesto that has been read in our hearing, 
and which is dated September 24, 1890, and as a church in general conference 
assembled we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative 
and binding. 11 

This action was reaffirmed by the General Conference of Octo- 
ber 6, 1 891. 

Of course the church officers had to make some explanation to 
the brethren of their change of front. Cannon fell back on the 
"revelation" of January 19, 1841, which Smith put forth to excuse 
the failure to establish a Zion in Missouri, namely, that, when 
their enemies prevent their performing a task assigned by the 
Almighty, he would accept their effort to do so. He said that 
"it was on this basis " that President Woodruff had felt justified in 
issuing the manifesto. Woodruff explained : " It is not wisdom for 
us to make war upon 65,000,000 people. . . . The prophet [Joseph 
Smith] organized the church ; and all that he has promised in this 
code of revelations [the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants"] has 



604 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



been fulfilled as fast as time would permit. That which is not ful- 
filled will be." Cannon did explain that the manifesto was the 
result of prayer, and Woodruff told the people that he had had a 
great many visits from the Prophet Joseph since his death, in 
dreams, and also from Brigham Young, but neither seems to have 
imparted any very valuable information, Joseph explaining that he 
was in an immense hurry preparing himself " to go to the earth with 
the Great Bridegroom when he goes to meet the Bride, the Lamb's 
wife." 

Two recent incidents have indicated the restlessness of the 
Mormon church under the restriction placed upon polygamy. In 
1898, the candidate for Representative in Congress, nominated by 
the Democratic Convention of Utah, was Brigham H. Roberts. It 
was commonly known in Utah that Roberts was a violator of the 
Edmunds law. A Mormon elder, writing from Brigham, Utah, in 
February, 1899, while Roberts's case was under consideration at 
Washington, said, " Many prominent Mormons foresaw the storm 
that was now raging, and deprecated Mr. Roberts's nomination and 
election." 1 This statement proves both the notoriety of Roberts's 
offence, and the connivance of the church in his nomination, be- 
cause no Mormon can be nominated to an office in Utah when the 
church authorities order otherwise. When Roberts presented him- 
self to be sworn in, in December, 1899, his case was referred to a 
special committee of nine members. The report of seven members 
of this committee found that Roberts married his first wife about 
the year 1878 ; that about 1885 he married a plural wife, who had 
since born him six children, the last two twins, born on August 1 i, 
1897; that some years later he married a second plural wife, and 
that he had been living with all three till the time of his election ; 
" that these facts were generally known in Utah, publicly charged 
against him during his campaign for election, and were not denied 
by him." Roberts refused to take the stand before the committee, 
and demurred to its jurisdiction on the ground that the hearing was 
•an attempt to try him for a crime without an indictment and jury- 
trial, and to deprive him of vested rights in the emoluments of 
the office to which he was elected, and that, if the crime alleged 
was proved, it would not constitute a sufficient cause to deprive him 
of his seat, because polygamy is not enumerated in the constitution 

1 New York Evening Post, February 20, 1899. 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY — STATEHOOD 605 



as a disqualification for the office of member of Congress. The 
majority report recommended that his seat be declared vacant. 
Two members of the committee reported that his offence afforded 
constitutional ground for expulsion, but not for exclusion from the 
House, and recommended that he be sworn in and immediately 
expelled. The resolution presented by the majority was adopted 
by the House by a vote of 268 to 50. 1 

The second incident referred to was the passage by the Utah 
legislature in March, 1901, of a bill containing this provision : — 

" No prosecution for adultery shall be commenced except on complaint of 
the husband or wife or relative of the accused with the first degree of consan- 
guinity, or of the person with whom the unlawful act is alleged to have been com- 
mitted, or of the father or mother of said person ; and no prosecution for 
unlawful cohabitation shall be commenced except on complaint of the wife, or 
alleged plural wife of the accused ; but this provision shall not apply to prosecu- 
tions under section 4208 of the Revised Statutes, 1898, defining and punishing 
polygamous marriages. 11 

This bill passed the Utah senate by a vote of 1 1 to 7, and the 
house by a vote of 174 to 25. The excuse offered for it by the 
senator who introduced it was that it would " take away from cer- 
tain agitators the opportunity to arouse periodic furors against the 
Mormons " ; that more than half of the persons who had been 
polygamists had died or dissolved their polygamous relations, and 
that no good service could be subserved by prosecuting the re- 
mainder. This law aroused a protest throughout the country, and 
again the Mormon church saw that it had made a mistake, and on 
the 14th of March Governor H. M. Wells vetoed the bill, on 
grounds that may be summarized as declaring that the law would 
do the Mormons more harm than good. The most significant part 
of his message, as indicating what the Mormon authorities most 
dread, is contained in the following sentence : "I have every rea- 
son to believe its enactment would be the signal for a general 
demand upon the national Congress for a constitutional amend- 
ment directed solely against certain conditions here, a demand 
which, under the circumstances, would assuredly be complied 
with." 

1 Roberts was tried in the district court in Salt Lake City, on April 30, 1900, on 
the charge of unlawful cohabitation. The case was submitted to the jury of eight men, 
without testimony, on an agreed statement of facts, and the jury disagreed, standing six 
for conviction and two for acquittal. 



6o6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



The admission of Utah as a state followed naturally the pro- 
mulgation by the Mormon church of a policy which was accepted 
by the non-Mormons as putting a practical end to the practice of 
polygamy. For the seventh time, in 1887, the Mormons had 
adopted a state constitution, the one ratified in that year providing 
that "bigamy and polygamy, being considered incompatible with 
1 a republican form of government,' each of them is hereby for- 
bidden and declared a misdemeanor." The non-Mormons attacked 
the sincerity of this declaration, among other things pointing 
out the advice of the Church organ, while the constitution was 
before the people, that they be " as wise as serpents and as harm- 
less as doves." Congress again refused admission. 

On January 4, 1893, President Harrison issued a proclamation 
granting amnesty and pardon to all persons liable to the penalty 
of the Edmunds law " who have, since November 1, 1890, abstained 
from such unlawful cohabitation," but on condition that they 
should in future obey the laws of the United States. Until the 
time of Woodruff's manifesto there had been in Utah only two 
political parties, the People's, as the Mormon organization had 
always been known, and the Liberal (anti-Mormon). On June 10, 
1 89 1, the People's Territorial Central Committee adopted resolu- 
tions reciting the organization of the Republicans and Democrats 
of the territory, declaring that the dissensions of the past should be 
left behind and that the People's party should dissolve. The 
Republican Territorial Committee a few days later voted that a 
division of the people on national party lines would result only in 
statehood controlled by the Mormon theocracy. The Democratic 
committee eight days later took a directly contrary view. At the 
territorial election in the following August the Democrats won, 
the vote standing: Democratic, 14,116; Liberal, 7386; Republi- 
can, 6613. 

It would have been contrary to all political precedent if the 
Republicans had maintained their attitude after the Democrats 
had expressed their willingness to receive Mormon allies. Accord- 
ingly, in September, 1891, we find the Republicans adopting a 
declaration that it would be wise and patriotic to accept the changes 
that had occurred, and denying that statehood was involved in a 
division of the people on national party lines. 

All parties in the territory now seemed to be manoeuvring for 



THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY — STATEHOOD 607 



position. The Morman newspaper organs expressed complete 
indifference about securing statehood. In Congress Mr. Caine, 
the Utah Delegate, introduced what was known as the " Home 
Rule Bill," taking the control of territorial affairs from the gov- 
ernor and commission. This was known as a Democratic measure, 
and great pressure was brought to bear on Republican leaders at 
Washington to show them that Utah as a state would in all prob- 
ability add to the strength of the Republican column. When, at 
the first session of the 53d Congress, J. L. Rawlins, a Democrat 
who had succeeded Caine as Delegate, introduced an act to enable 
the people of Utah to gain admission for the territory as a state, it 
met with no opposition at home, passed the House of Representa- 
tives on December 13, 1893, and the Senate on July 10, 1894 
(without a division in either House), and was signed by the President 
on July 16. The enabling act required the constitutional conven- 
tion to provide " by ordinance irrevocable without the consent of 
the United States and the people of that state, that perfect tolera- 
tion of religious sentiment shall be secured, and that no inhabitant 
of said state shall ever be molested in person or property on 
account of his or her mode of religious worship ; provided, that 
polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited." 

The constitutional convention held under this act met in Salt 
Lake City on March 4, 1895, and completed its work on May 8, 
following. In the election of delegates for this convention the 
Democrats cast about 19,000 votes, the Republicans about 21,000 
and the Populists about 6500. Of the 107 delegates chosen, 48 
were Democrats and 59 Republicans. The constitution adopted 
contained the following provisions : — 

"Art. I. Sec. 4. The rights of conscience shall never be infringed. The 
state shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the 
free exercise thereof ; no religious test shall be required as a qualification for 
any office of public trust, or for any vote at any election ; nor shall any person be 
incompetent as a witness or juror on account of religious belief or the absence 
thereof. There shall be no union of church and state, nor shall any church 
dominate the state or interfere with its functions. No public money or property 
shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise, or instruction, 
or for the support of any ecclesiastical establishment. 

"Art. III. The following ordinance shall be irrevocable without the consent 
of the United States and the people of this state : Perfect toleration of religious 
sentiment is guaranteed. No inhabitant of this state shall ever be molested in 



6o8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship ; but polyg- 
amous or plural marriages are forever prohibited." 

This constitution was submitted to the people on November 5, 
1895, and was ratified by a vote of 31,305 to 7687, the Republicans 
at the same election electing their entire state ticket and a majority 
of the legislature. On January 4, 1896, President Cleveland issued 
a proclamation announcing the admission of Utah as a state. The 
inauguration of the new state officers took place at Salt Lake City 
two days later. The first governor, Heber M. Wells, 1 in his 
inaugural address made this declaration : " Let us learn to resent 
the absurd attacks that are made from time to time upon our sin- 
cerity by ignorant and prejudiced persons outside of Utah, and let 
us learn to know and respect each other more, and thus cement 
and intensify the fraternal sentiments now so widespread in our 
community, to the end that, by a mighty unity of purpose and 
Christian resolution, we may be able to insure that domestic tran- 
quillity, promote that general welfare, and secure those blessings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity guaranteed by the con- 
stitution of the United States." 

The vote of Utah since its admission as a state has been cast 
as follows : — 





Republican 


Democrat 


1895. 




20,833 


18,519 


1896. 






64,607 


1900. 




47,600 


44,447 


1900. 


President 


47,089 


44,949 



1 Son of " General " Wells of the Nauvoo Legion. 



CHAPTER XXV 



THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY 

An intelligent examination of the present status of the Mormon 
church can be made only after acquaintance with its past history, 
and the policy of the men who have given it its present doctrinal 
and political position. The Mormon power has ever in view 
objects rather than methods. It always keeps those objects in 
view, while at times adjusting methods to circumstances, as was 
the case in its latest treatment of the doctrine of polygamy. The 
casual visitor, making a tour of observation in Utah, and the 
would-be student of Mormon policies who satisfies himself with 
reading their books of doctrine instead of their early history, is 
certain to acquire little knowledge of the real Mormon character 
and the practical Mormon ambition, and if he writes on the sub- 
ject he will contribute nothing more authentic than does Schouler 
in his " History of the United States " wherein he calls Joseph 
Smith "a careful organizer," and says that "it was a part of his 
creed to manage well the material concerns of his people, as they 
fed their flocks and raised their produce." Brigham Young's con- 
stant cry was that all the Mormons asked was to be left alone. 
Nothing suits the purposes of the heads of the church to-day 
better than the decrease of public attention attracted to their 
organization since the Woodruff manifesto concerning polygamy. 
In trying to arrive at a reasonable decision concerning their future 
place in American history, one must constantly bear in mind the 
arguments which they have to offer to religious enthusiasts, and 
the political and commercial power which they have already 
attained and which they are constantly strengthening. 

The growth of Utah in population since its settlement by the 
Mormons has been as follows, accepting the figures of the United 
States census : — 

2 R 609 



6io 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



1850 11,380 

i860 40,273 

1870 86,786 

1880 i43>9 6 3 

1890 207,905 

1900 276,749 



The census of 1890 (the religious statistics of the census of 
1900 are not yet available) shows that, of a total church member- 
ship of 128,115 in Utah, the Latter-Day Saints numbered 118,201. 

What may be called the Mormon political policy embraces 
these objects : to maintain the dictatorial power of the priesthood 
over the present church membership ; to extend that membership 
over the adjoining states so as to acquire in the latter, first a 
balance of power, and later complete political control; to con- 
tinue the work of proselyting throughout the United States and in 
foreign lands with a view to increasing the strength of the church 
at home by the immigration to Utah of the converts. 

That the power of the Mormon priesthood over their flock has 
never been more autocratic than it is to-day is the testimony of the 
best witnesses who may be cited. A natural reason for this may 
be found in the strength which always comes to a religious sect 
with age, if it survives the period of its infancy. We have seen 
that in the early days of the church its members apostatized in 
scores, intimate acquaintance with Smith and his associates soon 
disclosing to men of intelligence and property their real objects. 
But the church membership in and around Utah to-day is made up 
of the children and the grandchildren of men and women who 
remained steadfast in their faith. These younger generations are 
therefore influenced in their belief, not only by such appeals as what 
is taught to them makes to their reason, but by the fact that these 
teachings are the teachings which have been accepted by their 
ancestors. It is, therefore, vastly more difficult to convince a 
younger Mormon to-day that his belief rests on a system of fraud 
than it was to enforce a similar argument on the minds of men and 
women who joined the Saints in Ohio or Illinois. We find, accord- 
ingly, that apostasies in Utah are of comparatively rare occur- 
rence ; that men of all classes accept orders to go on missions to 
all parts of the world without question ; and that the tithings are 
paid with greater regularity than they have been since the days of 
Brigham Young. 



THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY 



611 



The extension of the membership of the Mormon church over 
the states and territories nearest to Utah has been carried on with 
intelligent zeal The census of 1890 gives the following compari- 
son of members of Latter-Day Saints churches and of " all bodies " 
in the states and territories named : — 





L.-D. Saints 


All Bodies 




14,972 


24,036 




6,500 


26,972 




525 


5,877 






11,705 




1,762 


86,837 




456 


105,749 



The political influence of the Mormon church in all the states 
and territories adjacent to Utah is already great, amounting in 
some instances to practical dictation. It is not necessary that any 
body of voters should have the actual control of the politics of a 
state to insure to them the respect of political managers. The 
control of certain counties will insure to them the subserviency of 
the local politicians, who will speak a good word for them at the 
state capital, and the prospect that they will have greater influence 
in the future will be pressed upon the attention of the powers that 
be. We have seen how steadily the politicians of California at 
Washington stood by the Mormons in their earlier days, when 
they were seeking statehood and opposing any federal control of 
their affairs. The business reasons which influenced the Califor- 
nians are a thousand times more effective to-day. The Coopera- 
tive Institution has a hold on the Eastern firms from which it buys 
^oods, and every commercial traveller who visits Utah to sell the 
goods of his employers to Mormon merchants learns that a good 
word for his customers is always appreciated. The large corpora- 
tions that are organized under the laws of Utah (and this includes 
the Union Pacific Railroad Company) are always in some way 
beholden to the Mormon legislative power. All this sufficiently 
indicates the measures quietly taken by the Mormon church to 
guard itself against any further federal interference. 

The mission work of the Mormon church has always been con- 
ducted with zeal and efficiency, and it is so continued to-day. The 



6l2 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



church authorities in Utah no longer give out definite statistics 
showing the number of missionaries in the field, and the number 
of converts brought to Utah from abroad. The number of mis- 
sionaries at work in October, 1901, was stated to me by church 
officers at from fourteen hundred to nineteen hundred, the smaller 
number being insisted upon as correct by those who gave it. As 
nearly as could be ascertained, about one-half this force is employed 
in the United States and the rest abroad. The home field most 
industriously cultivated has been the rural districts of the Southern 
states, whose ignorant population, ever susceptible to " preaching " 
of any kind, and quite incapable of answering the Mormon inter- 
pretation of the Scriptures, is most easily lead to accept the Mor- 
mon views. When such people are offered an opportunity to 
improve their worldly condition, as they are told they may do in 
Utah, at the same time that they can save their souls, the bait 
is a tempting one. The number of missionaries now at work in 
these Southern states is said to be much smaller than it was two 
years ago. Meanwhile the work of proselyting in the Eastern 
Atlantic states has become more active. The Mormons have their 
headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and their missionaries make 
visits in all parts of Greater New York. They leave a great many 
tracts in private houses, explaining that they will make another 
call later, and doing so if they receive the least encouragement. 
They take great pains to reach servant girls with their literature 
and arguments, and the story has been published 1 of a Mormon 
missionary who secured employment as a butler, and made himself 
so efficient that his employer confided to him the engagement of 
all the house servants ; in time the frequent changes which he 
made aroused suspicion, and an investigation disclosed the fact that 
he was a Mormon of good education, who used his position as head 
servant to perform effective proselyting work. By promise of a 
husband and a home of her own on her arrival in Utah, this man 
was said to have induced sixty girls to migrate from New York 
City to that state since he began his labors. 

The Mormons estimate the membership of their church through- 
out the world at a little over 300,000. The numbers of " souls " in 
the church abroad was thus reported for the year ending December 
31, 1899, as published in the Millennial Star: — 

1 New York Sun, January 27, 1901. 



THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY 



613 



Great Britain 

Scandinavia 

Germany 



4,588 
5438 
1,198 
1,078 



Switzerland 
Netherlands 



These figures indicate a great falling otf in the church con- 
stituency in Europe as compared with the year 185 1, when the 
number of Mormons in Great Britain and Ireland was reported 
at more than thirty thousand. Many influences have contributed 
to decrease the membership of the church abroad and the number 
of converts which the church machinery has been able to bring to 
Utah. We have seen that the announcement of polygamy as a 
necessary belief of the church was a blow to the organization 
in Europe. The misrepresentation made to converts abroad to 
induce them to migrate to Utah, as illustrated in the earlier years 
of the church, has always been continued, and naturally many of 
the deceived immigrants have sent home accounts of their decep- 
tion. A book could be filled with stories of the experiences of men 
and women who have gone to Utah, accepting the promises held 
out to them by the missionaries, — such as productive farms, paying 
business enterprises, or remunerative employment, — only to find 
their expectations disappointed, and themselves stranded in a 
country where they must perform the hardest labor in order to sup- 
port themselves, if they had not the means with which to return 
home. The effect of such revelations has made some parts of 
Europe an unpleasant field for the visits of Mormon missionaries. 

The government at Washington, during the operation of the 
Perpetual Emigration Fund organization, realized the evil of the 
introduction of so many Mormon converts from abroad. On 
August 9, 1879, Secretary of State William M. Evarts sent out a 
circular to the diplomatic officers of the United States throughout 
the world, calling their attention to the fact that the organized 
shipment of immigrants intended to add to the number of law- 
defying polygamists in Utah was "a deliberate and systematic 
attempt to bring persons to the United States with the intent of 
violating their laws and committing crimes expressly punishable 
under the statute as penitentiary offences," and instructing them to 
call the attention of the governments to which they were accredited 
to this matter, in order that those governments might take such 



614 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



steps as were compatible with their laws and usages " to check the 
organization of these criminal enterprises by agents who are thus 
operating beyond the reach of the law of the United States, and 
to prevent the departure of those proposing to come hither as 
violatbrs of the law by engaging in such criminal enterprises, 
by whomsoever instigated." President Cleveland, in his first mes- 
sage, recommended the passage of a law to prevent the importation 
of Mormons into the United States. The Edmunds-Tucker law 
contained a provision dissolving the Perpetual Emigration Com- 
pany, and forbidding the Utah legislature to pass any law to bring 
persons into the territory. Mormon authorities have informed 
me that there has been no systematic immigration work since the 
prosecutions under the Edmunds law. But as it is conceded that 
the Mormons make practically no proselytes among their Gentile 
neighbors, they must still look largely to other fields for that 
increase of their number which they have in view. 

As a part of their system of colonizing the neighboring states 
and territories, they have made settlements in the Dominion of 
Canada and in Mexico. Their Canadian settlement is situated 
in Alberta. A report to the Superintendent of Immigration at 
Ottawa, dated December 30, 1899, stated that the Mormon colony 
there comprised 1 700 souls, all coming from Utah ; and that " they 
are a very progressive people, with good schools and churches." 
When they first made their settlement they gave a pledge to the 
Dominion government that they would refrain from the practice 
of polygamy while in that country. In 1889 the Department of 
the Interior at Ottawa was informed that the Mormons were not 
observing this pledge, but investigation convinced the department 
that this accusation was not true. However, in 1890, an amend- 
ment to the criminal law of the Dominion was enacted (clause 11, 
53 Victoria, Chap. 37), making any person guilty of a misdemeanor, 
and liable to imprisonment for five years and a fine of $500, 
who practises any form of polygamy or spiritual marriage, or 
celebrates or assists in any such marriage ceremony. 

The Secretario de Fomento of Mexico, under date of May 4, 
1 90 1, informed me that the number of Mormon colonists in that 
country was then 2319, located in seven places in Chihuahua and 
Sonora. He added : " The laws of this country do not permit 
polygamy. The government has never encouraged the immigra- 



THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY 



615 



tion of Mormons, only that of foreigners of good character — 
working people who may be useful to the republic. - And in the 
contracts made for the establishment of those [Mormon] colonies 
it was stipulated that they should be formed only of foreigners 
embodying all the aforesaid conditions." 

No student of the question of polygamy, as a doctrine and prac- 
tice of the Mormon church, can reach any other conclusion than 
that it is simply held in abeyance at the present time, with an ex- 
pectation of a removal of the check now placed upon it. The 
impression, which undoubtedly prevails throughout other parts of 
the United States, that polygamy was finally abolished by the 
Woodruff manifesto and the terms of statehood, is founded on an 
ignorance of the compulsory character of the doctrine of polygamy, 
of the narrowness of President Woodruff's decree, and of the part 
which polygamous marriages have been given, by the church doc- 
trinal teachings, in the plan of salvation. The sketch of the various 
steps leading up to the Woodruff manifesto shows that even that 
slight concession to public opinion was made, not because of any 
change of view by the church itself concerning polygamy, but 
simply to protect the church members from the loss of every privi- 
lege of citizenship. That manifesto did not in any way condemn 
the polygamous doctrine ; it simply advised the Saints to submit to 
the United States law against polygamy, with the easily under- 
stood but unexpressed explanation that it was to their temporal 
advantage to do so. How strictly this advice has since been lived 
up to — to what extent polygamous practices have since been con- 
tinued in Utah — it is not necessary, in a work of this kind, to try 
to ascertain. The most intelligent non-Mormon testimony obtain- 
able in the territory must be discarded if we are to believe that 
polygamous relations have not been continued in many instances. 
This, too, would be only what might naturally be expected among 
a people who had so long been taught that plural marriages were 
a religious duty, and that the check to them was applied, not by 
their church authorities, but by an outside government, hostility to 
which had long been inculcated in them. 

It must be remembered that it is a part of the doctrine of polyg- 
amy that woman can enter heaven only as sealed to some devout 
member of the Mormon church "for time and eternity," and that 
the space around the earth is filled with spirits seeking some "tab- 



6i6 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



ernacles of clay" by means of which they may attain salvation. 
Through the teaching of this doctrine, which is accepted as explic- 
itly by the membership of the Mormon church at large as is any 
doctrine by a Protestant denomination, the Mormon women believe 
that the salvation of their sex depends on " sealed " marriages, and 
that the more children they can bring into the world the more 
spirits they assist on the road to salvation. In the earlier days of 
the church, as Brigham Young himself testified, the bringing in of 
new wives into a family produced discord and heartburnings, and 
many pictures have been drawn of the agony endured by a wife 
number one when her husband became a polygamist. All the 
testimony I can obtain in regard to the Mormonism of to-day shows 
that the Mormon women are now the most earnest advocates of 
polygamous marriages. Said one competent observer in Salt Lake 
City to me, " As the women of the South, during the war, were 
the rankest rebels, so the women of Mormondom are to-day the 
most zealous advocates of polygamy." 

By precisely what steps the church may remove the existing 
prohibition of polygamous marriages I shall not attempt to decide. 
It is easy, however, to state the one enactment which would pre- 
vent the success of any such effort. This would be the adoption 
by Congress and ratification by the necessary number of states of 
a constitutional amendment making the practice of polygamy an 
offence under the federal law, and giving the federal courts juris- 
diction to punish any violators of this law. The Mormon church 
recognizes this fact, and whenever such an amendment comes 
before Congress all its energies will be directed to prevent its rati- 
fication. Governor Wells's warning in his message vetoing the 
Utah Act of March, 1901, concerning prosecutions for adultery, 
that its enactment would be the signal for a general demand for 
the passage of a constitutional amendment against polygamy, 
showed how far the executive thought it necessary to go to pre- 
vent even the possibility of such an amendment. One of the main 
reasons why the Mormons are so constantly increasing their num- 
bers in the neighboring states is that they may secure the vote of 
those states against an anti-polygamy amendment. Whenever 
such an amendment is introduced at Washington it will be found 
that every Mormon influence — political, mercantile, and railroad 
— will be arrayed against it, and its passage is unlikely unless the 



THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY 



617 



church shall make some misstep which will again direct public 
attention to it in a hostile manner. 

The devout Mormon has no more doubt that his church will 
dominate this nation eventually than he has in the divine character 
of his prophet's revelations. Absurd as such a claim appears to 
all non-Mormon citizens, in these days when Mormonism has suc- 
ceeded in turning public attention away from the sect, it is interest- 
ing to trace the church view of this matter, along with the impression 
which the Mormon power has made on some of its close observers. 
The early leaders made no concealment of their claim that Mor- 
monism was to be a world religion. " What the world calls ' Mor- 
monism ' will rule every nation," said Orson Hyde. "God has 
decreed it, and his own right arm will accomplish it." 1 Brigham 
Young, in a sermon in the Tabernacle on February 15, 1856, told 
his people that their expulsion from Missouri was revealed to him 
in advance, as well as the course of their migrations, and he added : 
" Mark my words. Write them down. This people as a church 
and kingdom will go from the west to the east." 

Tullidge, whose works, it must be remembered, were submitted 
to church revision, in his " Life of Brigham Young " thus defines 
the Mormon view of the political mission of the head of the church : 
"He is simply an apostle of a republican nationality, manifold in 
its genius ; or, in popular words, he is the chief apostle of state 
rights by divine appointment. He has the mission, he affirms, and 
has been endowed with inspiration to preach the gospel of a true 
democracy to the nation, as well as the gospel for the remission of 
sins, and he believes the United States will ultimately need his 
ministration in both respects. . . . They form not, therefore, a 
rival power as against the Union, but an apostolic ministry to it, 
and their political gospel is state rights and self-government. This 
is political Mormonism in a nutshell." 2 

Tullidge further says in his " History of Salt Lake City " 
(writing in 1886): "The Mormons from the first have existed as a 
society, not as a sect. They have combined the two elements of 
organization — the social and the religious. They are now a new 
society power in the world, and an entirety in themselves. They 
are indeed the only religious community in Christendom of modern 
birth." 3 

1 Journal of Discourses, Vol. VII, pp. 48-53. 2 p. 244. 3 p. 387. 



6i8 



THE STORY OF THE MORMONS 



Some of the closest observers of the Mormons in their earlier 
days took them very seriously. Thus Josiah Quincy, after visiting 
Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, wrote that it was " by no means impossi- 
ble " that the answer to the question, " What historical American 
of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence 
upon the destiny of his countrymen," would not be, " Joseph Smith." 
Governor Ford of Illinois, who had to do officially with the Mor- 
mons during most of their stay in that state, afterward wrote con- 
cerning them : " The Christian world, which has hitherto regarded 
Mormonism with silent contempt, unhappily may yet have cause to 
fear its rapid increase. Modern society is full of material for such 
a religion. ... It is to be feared that, in the course of a century, 
some gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator who will be able 
by his eloquence to attract crowds of the thousands who are ever 
ready to hear and be carried away by the sounding brass and tin- 
kling cymbal of sparkling oratory, may command a hearing, may 
succeed in breathing a new life into this modern Mohammedanism, 
and make the name of the martyred Joseph ring as loud, and stir 
the souls of men as much, as the mighty name of Christ itself." 1 

The close observers of Mormonism in Utah, who recognize its 
aims, but think that its days of greatest power are over, found this 
opinion on the fact that the church makes practically no converts 
among the neighboring Gentiles ; and that the increasing mining 
and other business interests are gradually attracting a population 
of non-Mormons which the church can no longer offset by con- 
verts brought in from the East and from foreign lands. Special 
stress is laid on the future restriction on Mormon immigration 
that will be found in the lack of further government land which 
may be offered to immigrants, and in the discouraging stories sent 
home by immigrants who have been induced to move to Utah by 
the false representations of the missionaries. Unquestionably, if 
the Mormon church remains stationary as regards wealth and 
membership, it will be overshadowed by its surroundings. What 
it depends on to maintain its present status and to increase its 
power is the loyal devotion of the body of its adherents, and its 
skill in increasing their number in the states which now surround 
Utah, and eventually in other states. 

1 Ford, " History of Illinois," p. 359. 



INDEX 



A 

Aaronic Priesthood, 120. 

''Abraham, Book of," 140. 

Adam, Brigham Young's doctrine of, 116; 

settlement in Missouri, 195. 
Adam-ondi-Ahman, revelation about, 195 ; last 

days of Mormons in, 210, 211. 
Adoption, doctrine of, 280. 
Aikin party, murder of, 450; indictments for, 

569- 

Alexander, Col. E. B., leader of foremost com- 
panies in the Mormon "war," 487; reply 
to Young, 488 ; advance toward Salt Lake 
City, 491, 492 ; correspondence with Young, 
494-496. 

Allen, Capt. J., instructions about the Bat- 
talion, 371. 
Alma, 94. 

Alphabet, Mormon, 439. 
Amlicites, 54. 

Ammaron hides the golden plates, 91. 
Anderson, Rosmos, victim of blood atone- 
ment, 456. 

Anthon, Prof. Charles, account of Harris's 

visit, 39, 40. 
"Argus's" letters on Mountain Meadows 

massacre, 532. 
Apostasies, early, 133 ; reasons for, 153. 
Apostles, duties of, 101 ; revelation on, 102, 

120. 

Archbold, Ann, on Mormon dishonesty, 332. 
Army of Zion, 180, 181. 
Arthur, Charlotte, on endowment oath, 355. 
Arthur, Pres. C. A., on polygamy, 595. 
"Articles of Faith," 118. 

Atchison, Gen. D. R., Smith's counsel, 199; 
unpopularity with non-Mormons, 206; in 
Missouri legislature, 216. 

Atwater, Darwin, on Rigdon's early declara- 
tions, 65. 

Avard, S., reveals Danite constitution, 191 ; 
with volunteers for Daviess County, 198; 
arrest and confession, 209; testimony 
against Mormon leaders, 212 ; excommuni- 
cated, 213 note. 

Axtell, S. B., governor of Utah Territory, 573. 



B 

Babbitt, A. W., delegate to Congress, 430; 
on Salt Lake City duties, 431 ; refused ad- 
mission, 431 ; secretary Utah Territory, 467 ; 
his death, 467 note. 

Babel, tower of, departure of Jaredites, 90. 

Backenstos, J. B., mission to Gov. Ford, 248 ; 
proclamations and action as sheriff, 336, 
337 ; Lieut. Worrell's murder, 336 ; resigna- 
tion demanded, 339; course during "last 
war," 346. 

Balzac, on seers, 5. 

Bancroft, H. H., "History of Utah," viii ; on 
Rigdon, 75 ; contradicted by J. M. Grant, 
466; defence of Mountain Meadows mur- 
derers, 527 note. 

Bank at Kirtland, story of, 148-152 ; redemp- 
tion of a bill by Smith, 265. 

Banks, John, shooting of, 541. 

Baptism, Disciples' and Mormon doctrine, 64; 
Disciples' tenet in Mormon Bible, 93 note; 
for the dead, 118, 119. 

Baskin, R. N., prosecutor, 568. 

Bateman, W., part in Mountain Meadows 
massacre, 322. 

Battalion, the Mormon, how organized, 371; 
false claims for, 371-373: march to Cali- 
fornia, 373 ; dispersal, 373 ; meeting the 
pioneers, 388 ; in Salt Lake City, 397. 

Bayard, Senator T. F., reports on Morrill Bill, 
590. 

Beadle, J. H., on the " Reformation," 444; on 
Gov. Dawson's punishment, 538 ; on warn- 
ing to Gov. Hardin, 542; on outside 
influences, 570. 

Beaver Island, Wis., Strang's colony, 325. 

Beliefs, man's credulity, 2 ; origin of Mormon, 
63, 64; reasons for acceptance, 124, 126; 
outline of Mormon, 107-121. 

Bennett, Gen. James A., for Vice President, 
253 ; Emma's alleged statement to, 323. 

Bennett, Dr. John C, biography, 236; help in 
securing Nauvoo charter, 236; mayor and 
general, 238; inaugural address, 239 ; Mor- 
mon charges against, 268 ; letters to San- 
gamon youmal, lectures, and book, 269; 



620 



INDEX 



Mormon licentiousness charged, 270; with 
Strang, 325. 
Benson, A. G., Brannan's alleged interview 
with, 388. 

Benson, E. T., proposed settlement in Iowa, 
393- 

Bently, Adamson, connection with Rigdon, 
61 ; on Rigdon's foreknowledge of Mormon 
Bible, 65. 

Benton, R. H., Mountain Meadows story, 
526. 

Benton, R. T., attack on Morrisites, 541. 
Benton, T. H., alleged animosity to Mormons, 
372. 

Bernhisel, J. M., truth about the Battalion, 
372 note; Delegate in Congress, 501. 

Bible, the Mormon, contradictory accounts 
of, by the Smiths, 14, 23, 26, 27; Smith's 
confession to Peter Ingersol, 24; Abigail 
Harris's statement, 25 ; how two wags un- 
covered the plates, 26; first accounts of the 
discovery of the plates, statement of Smith's 
father, 28-30 ; the account in Smith's auto- 
biography, 30-32; Mother Smith's state- 
ments, 32-34 ; Harris's visit to Prof. Anthon, 
38-41 ; Mrs. Harris's seizure of translated 
pages, 41 ; obstacles to retranslation, 42-46; 
descriptions of the work of translation, 42; 
second copy made, 44 ; substitution of 
translation from plates of Nephi, 45 ; 
preface to first edition, 45 ; translating at 
Whitmer's house, 46 ; publication of, 47-49 ; 
its printing, 47-49 ; failure to secure pur- 
chasers, 49 ; expectations of a new Bible, 
65 ; critical examination of, 89-97 I correc- 
tions made, 89 ; disregard of by Mormons, 
89 ; facsimile of first edition title-page, 90 ; 
plates made by Mormon, 91, 92; books of, 
90 ; historical narrative, 90-95 ; why " re- 
formed Egyptian" was used, 92; Prof. 
Whitsitt's analysis, 92 note ; Christ in, 94- 
96 ; literary style, 95 ; chapters of Scripture 
introduced, 96; anachronisms, 97; gram- 
matical errors, 98 ; necessity of acceptance 
by Mormon church, 98 ; teachings against 
polygamy, 272, 273. 

Bidamon, Maj. L. C, Emma's second hus- 
band, 44 ; recovery of second Ms. of Mor- 
mon Bible, 44. 

Big Blue, Mo., attack on, 177, 178. 

Bird, W., part in Parrish murders, 449. 

Bishop, Gladden, 436. 

Bishops, the first, 120; to hold property, 146; 

as city magistrates, 429; Young's views of, 

439 note, 442. 
Black, Adam, agreement signed by, 198. 
Black, G. A., secretary and acting governor, 

Utah Territory, 568. 
Black, J. S., attorney general, approval of 

Floyd's order, 535. 



Blair, S. M., attorney general Utah Territory, 
458. 

Blessings, patriarchal, 121. 

Blood atonement, J. M. Grant the inventor, 
444; early plan for, 445; the Kayesville 
offenders, 445 ; origin and practice, 454- 
457- 

Bogart, Capt., at Crooked River, 203. 

Boggs, Gov., non-Mormon petition to, 200; 
Gen. Doniphan's report to, 201 ; " order 
of extermination," 205, 206; attempted 
assassination of, 245 ; trip to California, 284. 

Bonneville's explorations, 396. 

"Book of Commandments," 112. See Reve- 
lations. 

" Book of Doctrine and Covenants," publica- 
tion of, in Missouri, 112; Kirtland edition, 
112 ; result of publication, 169. See Reve- 
lations. 

Booth, Danforth, concerning Oliver Cowdery, 
80. • 

Booth, Rev. E., Harris's statement to, 36; 
conversion to Mormonism, 123, 126; state- 
ment about marriage relations, 273. 

Boreman, Judge J. S., presides at Lee's trial, 
532. 

Boweries, 370. 

Bowles, Samuel, visit to Utah, 552. 

Boyd of Kentucky, presents Deseret constitu- 
tion, 231. 

Boynton, J., in church fight, 158. 

Brandebury, L. G, chief justice of Utah Ter- 
ritory, 458. 

Brannan, S., emigration to California, 387, 
388 ; alleged agreement with Benson, 388. 

Brassfield, O. N., murder of, 554. 

Brayman, M., reports to Gov. Ford, 343, 350, 
35*. 367- 

Breastplate, delivery to Smith, 32; Mother 
Smith's description, 32. 

Bremer, murder of, 536. 

Brewer, Dr. C, on Mountain Meadow Massa- 
cre, 516. 

Bridger, Col. James, meets Utah pioneers, 
386 ; his fort, 389 ; discoverer of Great Salt 
Lake, 395 ; guide to Col. Johnston, 492. 

Brocchus, P. E., associate justice of Utah 
Territory, 458 ; address to the Mormons, 
461, 462; Young's denunciation of, 462; 
leaves Utah, 465 ; report to the President, 
465. 

Brockman, Col., part in " last Mormon war," 
348-35I- 

Bross, Lieut. Gov., visit to Utah, 552. 

Brown, Col. A. G., Jr., on government con- 
tracts, 500; on amnesty proclamation, 512; 
the terms to the Mormons, 514. 

Buchanan, Pres. James, Mormon appeal to, 
477 ; directs the organization of troops, 477 ; 
views in first message, 478 ; letters to Col. 



INDEX 



621 



Kane, 501, 502; back-down to Young, 504; 

peace message to Congress, 510 ; amnesty 

proclamation, 511; appointment of peace 

commissioners, 511. 
Buffaloes, vast herds of, 381. 
Buffmgton, J., chief justice of Utah Territory, 

458. 

Bullock, T., experiences during the migration, 
367- 368. 

Burgess, Salem trip, 147. 

"Burnings," the, in Illinois, 336, 343. 

Burr, D. H., surveyor general, presence re- 
sented, 473 ; escape from Utah, 474. 

C 

Caine, J. T., " Home Rule Bill," 607. 

Caldwell County, Mo., framed for the Mor- 
mons, 187 ; civil war in, 200, 201, 207-209. 

Calhoun, J. C, Smith's letter to, 250. 

California, the rush of gold seekers, 405-407; 
proposed consolidation with Deseret, 430; 
complaints of emigrants to, 440 ; exodus of 
Mormons, 496. 

Campbell, Alexander and Thomas, 59 ; Alex- 
ander's views of Rigdon, 61; Rigdon's jeal- 
ousy of, 62; challenge to Rigdon, 73; on 
Mormon Bible, 98. 

Campbellites. See Disciples of Christ. 

Camps, during the migration, 362, 363 ; on 
the Missouri, 375-378 ; Scott and Eccles, 
499. 

Canada, Mormon settlement in, 614; anti- 
polygamy law, 614. 

Cannon, G. Q., alleged endowment oath, 354; 
senator from State of Deseret, 540 ; in- 
dicted for unlawful cohabitation, 568 ; Dele- 
gate to Congress, 571 ; explanation of 
Woodruff's manifesto, 602. 

Cardenas, expedition to Utah, 395. 

Carleton, A. B., member Utah commission, 
597- 

Carlton, Gen., erects cairn in Mountain 

Meadows, 534. 
Carlin, Gov., on Nauvoo municipal court, 246. 
Carlin, special constable in " last Mormon 

war," 347. 

Carroll County, Mo., town started in, 195 ; 
measures to expel the Mormons, 201. 

Carthage, 111., petition to Gov. Ford. 298 ; 
murder of the Smiths, 301-306; anti-Mor- 
mon convention, 340 ; anti-Mormon meet- 
ing, 346. 

Carthage Grays, part in the Smiths' murder, 
303. 3°4- 

Caswall, Rev. H., test of Smith's knowledge, 
141 ; a Sunday service at Nauvoo, 260. 

Chandler, Albert, recollections of, 48 ; on 
Smith, 311, 312. 

Chartered Sisters of Charity, 270. 



Chase, Willard, account of "peek-stone," 20; 

Smith's offer to, 26. 
Chislett, J., description of hand-cart tragedy, 

419. 

Chittenden, Col. J. B., in command of anti- 
Mormon posse, 347. 

Christ, in Mormon Bible, 94-96 ; Smith's de- 
scription of, 116 ; men who saw, 138 ; alleged 
polygamist, 288. 

Church, Mormon, organization of, 99-101 ; 
legal organization, 100 ; form of govern- 
ment revealed, 100, 101, 119-121 ; name, 
108 ; organized in Ohio, 122 ; early govern- 
ment of, 131; dissensions in Missouri, 188, 
189 ; property at Nauvoo, 292 ; government 
after Smith's death, 314, 315; "secret 
works," 316 and note ; Young elected pres- 
ident, 330 ; alleged disloyal oaths, 354, 355, 
430 ; act of incorporation, 439 ; church-in- 
spired murders, 448-451; disloyalty of, 431, 
460, 474, 475, 483, 497, 543, 544; attitude 
toward the Southern states, 544 ; legislation 
about church property, 590; decision of U. 
S. Supreme Court, 602 ; policy of to-day, 
610; fidelity of younger members, 610; ex- 
tension of membership, 611 ; political in- 
fluence, 611 ; present mission work, 611, 
612; membership, 612; belief in national 
control, 617; checks on its growth, 618. 

Church of Christ, Rigdon's, 318. See Hen- 
drickites. 

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

See Church, Mormon. 
Church, Reorganized. See Reorganized 

Church. 

Clark, Rev. J. A., on money-digging, 20; con- 
tradictory accounts of the golden book, 23 ; 
Martin Harris, 35, 36, 38 ; feeling of Smith's 
neighbors, 106. 

Clark, Gen. J. B., Gov. Boggs's orders to, 205 ; 
at Far West, address to the Mormons, 209 ; 
Mormon testimonial to, 210; his summing 
up, 210. 

Clarke, S. J., on thieving by Mormons, 261. 

Clay County, Mo., first Mormon arrivals, 178 ; 
Army of Zion, 180 ; manufacture of arms, 
182 ; welcome to Mormons, 185 ; responsi- 
bility for trouble, 185 ; non-Mormon meet- 
ing at Liberty, and its demands, 185, 186. 

Clay, Henry, Smith's correspondence with, 
250, 251. 

Clayton, W., affidavit about the revelation 
concerning polygamy, 279. 

Clemison, John, testimony of, 213. 

Cleveland, Pres. Grover, on polygamy, 588 ; 
proclamation admitting Utah as a state, 
608 ; against Mormon immigration, 614. 

Clifford, Maj. B., Jr., in command at Nau- 
voo, 348. 

Cloistered Saints, 270. 



622 



INDEX 



Cobb, J. T., investigations, 28. 

Colesville, N. Y., branch church in, 100; re- 
moval to Missouri, 169. 

Colfax, S., first visit to Utah, 553; second 
visit, 556. 

" Commandments, Book of." See " Book 
of Commandments." 

Commerce, 111., origin of, 223. 

" Commissions " of Ohio converts, 128. 

Conferences, church, provided for, 101. 

Connor, Col. P. E., rebuke of disloyalty, 
544 ; march into Salt Lake City, 545 ; es- 
tablishes Camp Douglas, 546 ; invitation to 
miners, 550 ; ball in his honor, 602. 

Consecration of property, 145, 194. 

Converts, first Mormon, 100. 

Cooke, Lieut. Col. P. St. G., in Mormon 
"war," 482; sufferings of his force, 492; 
government sale at Camp Floyd, 537. 

Cooperation, church doctrine, 559 ; Z. C. M. 
I.. 559. 560. 

Corrill, John, reasons for accepting Mormon- 
ism, 124-126; why he abandoned it, 125 ; 
ravings of converts, 130 ; on Jackson County 
agreement, 175; locked up, 177; on Mis- 
souri relations, 187 ; leaves the church, 189 ; 
on Danites, 189; on Mormon plundering, 
202; testimony against the leaders, 212; 
excommunicated, 213 note; presents pe- 
tition to the legislature, 216. 

Council Bluffs, camp at, 376. 

Council of Fifty, 316 note. 

Counterfeiting alleged, 10, 81, 188, 260, 293, 
302, 331, 344, 360; of government drafts in 
Salt Lake City, 536, 537. 

Cowdery, Oliver, assistant translator, 38, 45; 
biography, 45 ; ordered West, 72 ; testi- 
mony regarding the plates, 78; character 
and later years, 80-83 '< authorized to bap- 
tize, 99; ordained, 100; authorization to 
reveal, and its results, 101, 102; first ser- 
mon, 103; trip to Toronto, 113; journey to 
Ohio, 122; miracle working, 139; boun- 
daries of the promised land, 142 ; share of 
Kirtland property, printer, 146 ; Kirtland 
bank, 148 ; charges against, 154 ; charge 
against Smith, 157; arrival in Missouri, 
162, 163 ; printer in Missouri, 167 ; mission 
to Kirtland, 176; expelled from church, 
188. 

Cowdery, W. A., on Kirtland Bank, 150; 
Smith on, 156. 

Cowles, Austin, affidavit, 291. 

Cradlebaugh, Judge John, action against 
Parrish murderers, 450; on Aiken mur- 
ders, 450 ; appointed associate justice of 
Utah Territory, 478 ; on Mountain Meadows 
Massacre, 524 note, 525, 526 ; checked by 
Governor Cumming, 535. 

Cragin Anti-polygamy Bill, 591. 



Craig, C. L., deputy surveyor, report, 473. 

Crickets, visitation of, 400. 

Crooked River, battle of, 203. 

Crosby, J. R., associate justice of Utah Terri- 
tory. 537. 54°- 

Crystal-gazing, 16-18 ; practise by Smith, 18- 
22. See " Peek-stone." 

Cullom, S. M., anti-polygarny bill of 1869, 
591 ; proposed law of 1890, 602. 

Cumming, Alfred, appointed governor of 
Utah, 478 ; proclamation to Young, 499 ; 
approached by Kane, 503 ; trip to Salt 
Lake City, 505-507; opinions of Young, 
507 ; charges against Hurt, 507 ; scene in 
the Tabernacle, 508 ; on Mormon exodus, 
510; peace commissioners on, 512; on 
Johnston's advance, 513 note; proclama- 
tion to the people, 516; opposes military 
posse, 535 ; order to Wells, 536 ; depart- 
ure from Utah, 537. 

Cumorah, land and hill of, 91. 

Currency, Mormon, 439. 

Curtis, George Ticknor, silence on Mormon 
" war," 480 note. 

Cyprian Saints, 270. 

D 

Dame, Col. W. H., part in Mountain Mead- 
ows Massacre, 527-532. 

Daniels, W. N., on the Smiths' murder, 304, 
306, 308. 

Danites, flight of Cowdery and Whitmer from, 
81; organization, 1 89-19 1 ; name, 191; 
constitution and oath, 191, 192, 334; Young 
on, 192 ; in politics, 198 ; testimony con- 
cerning, 212, 213 ; doings in and around 
Nauvoo, 334. 

Darien Isthmus, landing place of Jaredites, 
94. 

Daviess County, Mo., riot at Gallatin, 198 ; 

civil war in, 200, 201 ; military operations 

in, 205-207; militia disbanded, 210; Gen. 

R. Wilson's visit, 210, 211. 
Davison, Mis., on Spaulding manuscript, 52. 
Dawson, J. W., governor of Utah Territory, 

537 ; offence and punishment, 538, 539. 
Deacons, duties of, 101. 

Debts, revelation about, 146, 164; Young's 
view of, 437. 

Denmark, hostility to Mormons, 415 note. 

Deseret News, defiance of the government, 
483; on Gov. Dawson, 538; disloyal 
utterances, 543 ; on polygamy, 553 ; on 
Edmunds law, 600. 

Deseret, State of, first constitution and boun- 1 
daries, 429 ; memorial to Congress, 429 ; 
proposed consolidation with California, 
430; protest against admission, 430; charge 
of treason, 431 ; ordinances, 438, 439, 440; 
currency and alphabet, 439; university, 



INDEX 



623 



440; second constitution and application 
for admission, 477; third application for 
admission, 540; meeting of legislature, 
547- 

Deveria, translation of papyri, 141. 

Dewitt, Mo., siege of, 201. 

Dickens, Charles, illiteracy in England, 230; 
description of a Mormon vessel, 233 note. 

Dickinson, Ellen E., researches regarding 
Spaulding manuscript, 57. 

Dilke, Sir C. W., on Young, 553 note. 

Disciples of Christ, origin and beliefs, 60; 
similarity of Mormon beliefs, 63-65; ex- 
pectation of a new Bible, 65 ; grove meet- 
ing, 129. 

" Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mor- 
mon," 127. 

Divining rod, 15. 

Divorces, Young's fee for, 577. 

Dixon, Hepworth, on Rigdon, 75. 

" Doctrine and Covenants, Book of." See 
" Book " and Revelations. 

Doctrines, Mormon, 107-121. 

Dominguez's expedition to Utah, 395. 

Doniphan, Gen. A. W., Smith's counsel, 
199; militia force, 201; report to Gov. 
Boggs, 201. 

Dotson, P. K., marshal of Utah Territory, 
478 ; experience in counterfeit case, 536. 

Doty, J. D., governor of Utah Territory, 550 ; 
death, 567. 

Douglas, Stephen A., on Nauvoo Legion, 
237; appointment for Bennett, 238; mem- 
ber of Hancock County commission, 337 ; 
commission's report, 340; presents Mor- 
mon memorial, 430; explanation of Salt 
Lake City duties, 431 ; anti-Mormon speech, 
476. 

Drake, T. J., associate justice Utah Territory, 

540 ; defiance of Young, 548. 
Drummond, W. W., associate justice of Utah 

Territory, 466 ; reputation in Illinois, 469 ; 

ignores the probate courts, 471 ; quarrel 

with a Jew, and its results, 471 ; return to 

the East and report, 472. 
Dunklin, Gov., Mormon statement to, 175; 

reply thereto, 176; compromise urged, 

182 ; message to legislature, 184 ; reply to 

Clay County Mormons, 186. 
Dunn, Capt., visit to Nauvoo, 299. 
Durfee, A., part in Parrish murders, 448, 449. 
Durkee, C, governor of Utah Territory, 567. 
Duties levied in Salt Lake City, 431; Col. 

Kane on, 459. 
Dutton, S., indictment for murder, 569. 
Dylkes, " the leather god," 124. 

E 

Eagle, Hancock, issued at Nauvoo, 345. 
Eckles, D. R., chief justice of Utah Territory, 



478 ; court at Camp Scott, 500 ; refusal to 

accompany Gumming, 506; jury charge on 

polygamy, 514. 
Edmunds, Senator G. F., anti-polygamy bill, 

595 ; Edmunds-Tucker amendment. 596 ; 

bill regarding church property, 602. 
" Egyptian, reformed," why used on the 

plates, 92. 

Elders, duties, 101 ; to travel, 113; early mis- 
sionaries, 228, 229. 

Elders' Journal, vii. 

Election law, early Utah, 467. 

Ellicott, Lord Bishop, on baptism for the 
dead, 118. 

Emery, G. B., governor of Utah Territory, 
573 ; on polygamy, 594. 

Emmons, Sylvester, connection with the Ex- 
positor, 291. 

Endowment House, early ceremonies at Nau- 
voo, 278 ; ceremony described, 353, 354 ; 
the oath, 354, 355 ; Gen. Wells's refusal to 
testify about, 594. 

England, proselyting in, 230-233; charac- 
ter of converts, 256, 257 ; converts, how 
treated, 257 note. 

Enoch, Order of, 146. 

Escalante, expedition to Utah, 395. 

Ether, Book of, 93. 

Evarts, W. M., circular regarding Mormon 
immigration, 613. 

Evening and Morning Star, vii ; office de- 
stroyed, 174. 

" Everlasting Gospel," contained in golden 
plates, 31; Rigdon's use of the story of 
Cyril's plates and Joachim's teachings, 74- 
77 ; in Mormon writings, 77. 

Expositor, Nauvoo, its origin and suppres- 
sion, 290-296; incorrect statements about, 
291 note. 

F 

Fairchild, Pres. J. H., pamphlet on second 

Spaulding Ms., 55, 56; on Rigdon, 68. 
Faith cures, 139 note. 

Fancher, Capt., leader of Mountain Meadows 

victims, 518. 
Far West, Mo., founded, 187 ; surrender of, 

208. 

Fayette, N. Y., Mormon churchwork at, 100, 
104. 

Feet washing, 138. 

Ferguson, James, affair with Judge Stiles, 
471. 

Ferris, B. G., " Utah and the Mormons," 
viii; "the real (Mormon) miracle," 1; sec- 
retary of Utah Territory, 467. 

Fillmore, capital of Utah, 458. 

Fillmore, Pres. M., appoints Utah officers, 
458; deceived by Col. Kane, 459. 

Fitch, T., attorney for Mormons, 570. 



624 



INDEX 



Flenniken, R. P., associate justice of Utah 
Territory, 537, 540. 

Floyd, Sec. J. B., order to Gen. Johnston, 534. 

Ford, T., governor of Illinois, warrant for 
Smith's arrest, 247 ; on alleged pledge to 
Mormons, 248 note ; visit to Carthage, de- 
mand on Mormons for information, 298 ; 
surrender of Mormon leaders called for, 
298 ; the murder of the Smiths, 301-304 ; 
action after Smith's murder, 313 ; defends 
Mormons, 331; advises them not to vote, 
333 ; advice to Young, 335 ; changed view 
of Mormons, 337; vacillating course, 345, 
347, 348, 352 ; possible future of Mormon- 
ism, 618. 

Forney, Jacob, on Mountain Meadows vic- 
tims, 518 note, 525, 526 note. 

Foster, Dr. R. D., Smith's accusations, 290; 
connection with Expositor, 291 ; flight from 
Nauvoo, 295. 

Freedom of worship in Utah, 429. 

Frelinghuysen, F. T., defeat of his bill, 571. 

Fremont, claim to discovery of Great Salt 
Lake, 396. 

French, Gov., address to Hancock County 

citizens, 352. 
Frontier Guardian, 394. 

Fulgate, W., affidavit about Kinderhook 

plates, 87. 

Fuller, F., secretary and acting governor of 
Utah Territory, 537-539 ; removal of, 550. 
" Fur Company," 202. 

G 

Galland, Dr. Isaac, land proposition to Mor- 
mons, 222, 224; antecedents, 234 note; 
plan for Nauvoo, 234. 

Gallatin, Mo., riot, 198 ; night attack on, 202. 

Garden Grove camp, 366. 

Garfield, Pres. J. A., on polygamy, 595. 

Garfield, Mrs. J. A., recollections of Rigdon, 
67. 75- 

" Gazing." See " Crystal " and " Peek- 
stone." 

Gifts of tongues and miracles, 138. 

Gilbert, J. H., part in printing Mormon 

Bible, 47-48. 
Gilbert, Sidney, storekeeper in Missouri, 167 ; 

visit by mob, 174 ; locked up, 177. 
Gladdenites, suppression of, 436. 
Glyphs. 87. 

Godbe, W. S., Young's order to, 426; 
Young's threat, 560; in " New Movement," 
561 ; opposition to Cullom Bill, 592. 

Godfrey, G. L., member Utah commission, 
597- 

Gold Bible. See " Bible, Mormon." 
Gold discovery in California, effect in Utah, 
405-408. 



Grandin, E. B., publisher of Mormon Bible, 
47. 

Grant, G. D., indicted for murder, 569. 

Grant, J. M., anecdote of Smith, 310 ; on Salt 
Lake City immorality, 442 ; leader in " The 
Reformation," and inventor of blood atone- 
ment, 444; on human sacrifices, 454; pam- 
phlet, " The Truth about the Mormons," 
461 ; denial of polygamy, 465 note ; con- 
tradiction of H. H. Bancroft, 466 ; defiance 
of the government, 474; indictment for 
treason, 500 ; on discontented wives, 585. 

Grant, Pres. U. S., refusal to remove Judge 
McKean, 570; special message to Con- 
gress, 570; signs Poland Bill, 571. 

Gray, Prof. Asa, on Rafinesque, 88. 

Great Salt Lake, discovery of, 395. 

Great Salt Lake City. See Salt Lake City. 

Great Salt Lake Valley, first view of by the 
Mormons, 390, 391 ; first Sunday service in, 
396. 

Great Salt Lake Valley Carrying Co., 403. 

Greeley, Horace, on Mormon persecutions, 
136 ; Mormon influence over, 479 ; Young's 
statements to, 576, 579 ; woman's place in 
Utah, 584. 

Gregg, T., on Mormon persecutions, 220 ; on 
Smith's murder, 304. 

Grow, Galusha A., action on Deseret consti- 
tution, 477. 

Gunnison, Lieut. J. W., "The Mormons," 
viii ; early knowledge of blood atonement, 
445 ; Mormon view of land titles, 472 note ; 
murder of, 473 note. 

H 

Haight, I. C, part in Mountain Meadows 
Massacre, 526-530. 

Hale, Emma, marriage to Smith, 24. 

Hale, Isaac, character, 23; objections to 
Smith, 24 ; Smith's promise, 36 ; account 
of the translation of the golden plates, 37. 

Hall of the Seventies, 241. 

Hamblin, J., part in Mountain Meadows Mas- 
sacre, 525. 

Hancock County, 111., desire for settlers, 221; 
panic following Smith's murder, 313 ; Mor- 
mon vote in 1844, 333 ; the " burnings," 
336; Douglas-Hardin commission, 337; 
Gen. Hardin's proclamation, 338 ; anti- 
Mormon meetings, 338 ; convention at 
Carthage, 340; anti-Mormon meetings re- 
assembled, 345 ; contributions for poor 
Mormons, 368. See Illinois. 

Hand-cart tragedy, 418-427. 

Hardin, Gen. J. J., on Hancock County com- 
mission, 337; proclamation to Hancock 
County, 338 ; negotiations with Mormons, 
340, 341. 



INDEX 



Harding, S. S., trick on Stoddard, 105; gov- 
ernor of Utah Territory, 540; pardon of 
Morrisites, 542; censure of, by Mormon 
grand jury, 542; first message to legisla- 
ture, 546 ; retort of the legislators, 547 ; 
reply to Mormon committee, 548 ; removal, 
how secured, 550. 

Harmonists, treatment of, 135. 

Harney, Gen. W. S., in Mormon " war," 481. 

Harris, Abigail, statement, 25. 

Harris, B. D., territorial secretary, 458 ; de- 
parture with a federal appropriation, 464, 
465- 

Harris, Martin, personal and mental charac- 
teristics, 35 ; early partnership in the Golden 
Bible, 36; assistant translator, 37; visit to 
Prof. Anthon, 38-41 ; intrusted with trans- 
lated pages, 41 ; description of the work 
of translating the plates, 42; punishment 
of, 43; part in publication of Mormon 
Bible, 47 ; Albert Chandler's recollection 
of, 48 ; Smith's revelations about, 43, 49 ; 
sale of farm, 49 ; warned about talkative- 
ness, 79; exhibition of the plates, 79, 80, 
83; expulsion from the church, and last 
years, 84 ; share in Kirtland property, 146 ; 
trial of, 154; Smith on, 156; on Smith's 
intemperance, 156. 

Harris, Mrs. Martin, proceedings in court, 
27 ; husband's abuse of, 35 ; Mother Smith 
on, 36 ; theft of the translated pages, 41 ; 
separation from husband, 47. 

Harris, W., on Kirtland Bank, 148. 

Harrison, Pres. B., proclamation of amnesty, 

Harrison, E. L. T., in "New Movement," 

561-563 ; on Mormon oath, 354. 
Harrison, YV. H., Mormon vote for, 244. 
Hartnett, J., secretary of Utah Territory, 478. 
Haven, John, on Mrs. Davison's letter, 53. 
Hawkins, T., convicted of polygamy, 592. 
Hawn's Mill massacre, 204. 
Hay, Hon. John, account of Smith's murder, 

307 note. 

Hayden's " Early History of the Disciples' 
Church in the Western Reserve," 63-66. 

Hayes, Pres. R. B., on polygamy, 595. 

Haywood, J. L., marshal of Utah Territory, 
45 8 - 

Hazen, Gen. W. B., on Ben Holiday, 549 
note ; on Mormon murders, 555. 

Hedlock, R., immigration scandal, 410. 

Hendrick, Granville, founder of the Church 
of Christ, 183 note. 

Hendrickites, 183 note. 

Hendrix, D., picture of Smith, 13, 27; print- 
ing of the Mormon Bible, 48. 

Hickman, "Bill," on Aikin murders, 451; 
indicted for murder, 500 ; petition for Mor- 
risites' pardon, 542 ; a bet, 545. 
2 s 



I Higbee, F. M., Smith's quarrel with, 271 ; card 

in Expositor, 292. 
Higbee, J. M., part in- Mountain Meadows 

Massacre, 522 ff. 
High Council provided for, 101 ; organized, 

120. 

High Priest, office of, 120. 

Hinckle, G. M., at Dewitt, Mo., 201 ; order to, 
203 ; accused of treachery, 208 ; excommu- 
nicated, 213 note. 

Hoge-Walker incident, 245-249. 

Holiday, Ben, friend of the Mormons, 549 
note. 

Holman, J. H., Indian agent, on tampering 

with the mails, 484. 
Holy Ghost, gift of, 98 ; form of, 116. 
" Holy Order," 278. 

Hooper, W. H., senator from State of Deseret, 
540 ; on defeat of Frelinghuysen Bill, 571 ; 
speech against Cullom Bill, 591. 

Host of Israel, 192. 

Hotchkiss, H. R., landowner at Commerce, 
111., 223; demands on Smith, 225. 

Howe, E. D., " Mormonism Unveiled," viii ; 
researches concerning Spaulding Ms., 53, 
56. 

Hurlbut, D. P., connection with Spaulding 
MS., 56-58. 

Hurt, G., Indian agent, report to the govern- 
ment, and escape from Utah, 474; Gum- 
ming's charges against, 507. 

Hutchins, J., appeal to Pres. Grant, 179 note. 

Hyde, Elder John, Jr., weight of golden 
plates, 34 note ; estimate of Rigdon and P. 
P. Pratt, 59 ; sketch of, 59 ; plates still un- 
earthed, 92; New Testament quotations 
in the Mormon Bible, 96; the Danites, 
191 ; leaders' plans in Missouri, 195 ; the 
proselyting in England, 232 note; effect of 
" sealing " ordinances, 288 ; endowment 
ceremony, 353, 354; victims of blood atone- 
ment, 455 note ; on Young, 575. 

Hyde, Orson, doctrinal diagram, 116; con- 
nection with Kirtland bank, 148 ; letter to 
Missouri, 155 ; mission to Missouri, 176 ; 
leaves the church, 189 ; substantiates Marsh, 
214; mission to Jerusalem. 229; statements 
in England, 231 ; Christ an alleged polyga- 
mist, 288 ; Rigdon's prosecutor, 316 ; over- 
tures to Rigdon, 317 note; overtures to 
William Smith, 335 ; editor of Frontier 
Guardian, 394; blood atonement fore- 
shadowed, 454 ; on Mormon world rule, 617. 

I 

Icarians at Nauvoo, 355. 
Idaho, anti-polygamy law, 601. 
Illinois, early history, 219, 220 ; why Mormons 
were welcomed, 220, 221 ; Mormon land 



626 



INDEX 



purchases, 223; party divisions, 243; Mor- 
mons in politics, 243-249 ; uprising of non- 
Mormons, 297 ; Gov. Ford's course, 298 ; 
militia called out, 313 ; renewed anti-Mor- 
mon feeling, 331-333 ; Democratic repudia- 
tion of the Mormons, 335 ; the " burnings," 
336; Douglas-Hardin commission, 337; 
negotiations for Mormon evacuation, 338- 
341 ; Mormon view of the expulsion, 342 ; 
Brayman's reports, 343; evacuation of 
Nauvoo, 344-351 ; " last Mormon war," 
347-351. See Carthage, Hancock County, 
Quincy, Warsaw. 

Immigration, foreign, 232, 233 ; disappointed 
immigrants, 258 ; to Utah, 410-417 ; Hed- 
lock scandal, 410; misrepresentations to 
immigrants, 411-414, 613 ; petition to Queen 
Victoria, 412; Young's order to Saints in 
Europe, 413 ; " Perpetual Emigrating Fund," 
414; routes to Utah, 415-417 ; the hand-cart 
tragedy, 418-427 ; bond exacted, 420 note ; 
profits to agents, 427 ; supervision of, 434 ; 
action of government against, 613. 

Independence, Mo., town of, 166; anti-Mor- 
mon county meeting, 170; doings of the 
" mob," 174. 

Indians, origin of, 91 ; Pottawottomies' and 
Omahas' welcome to Mormons, 375, 376; 
encountered by Utah pioneers, 381, 383 ; 
Omahas' objection to their Mormon neigh- 
bors, 393 ; visit of pioneers to, 397 ; appro- 
priation of their land, 473 ; incited to hos- 
tility by the Mormons, 473, 474; part in 
Mountain Meadows Massacre, 521 ff. ; inter- 
ruption of the mails, 539. See Lamanites. 

Ingersol, Peter, Smith's confession to, 24. 

Iowa, Mormon land purchases, 223 ; evacua- 
tion by Mormons, 356; kind treatment of 
the emigrants from Nauvoo, 360; county 
organized for Mormons, 393; proposed 
permanent settlement, 393, 394. 

Irrigation, first in Utah, 391. 

Irving, Washington, on possibilities of the Far 
West, 380; his " Lake Bonneville," 396. 

Israel, lost,tribes of, 167. 

J 

Jack Mormons, 185. 

Jackson County, Mo., population and pio- 
neers, 161, 162; arrival of Mormon mis- 
sionaries, 162 ; expulsion of Mormons from, 
169-179; anti-Mormon manifesto, 170-172; 
grievances of anti-Mormons, 172, 173 ; ulti- 
matum to Mormons, 173; Mormon state- 
ments to the governor, 175-177 ; agreement 
signed, 175 ; land in Missouri to be held, 
176 ; Big Blue attacked, 177, 178 ; exchange 
of shots, 178 ; departure of the Mormons, 
178, 179; Mormon legal proceedings, 179; 



proposition of non-Mormons, 182; its re- 
jection, 183, 184 ; hoped-for return to Jack- 
son County, 183 note. 

Jacob, G. H., pamphlet on polygamy, 276. 

Jaques, Vienna, 111. 

Jaredites, 91, 93. 

Jarvis, H. J., vengeance on, 446. 

"Jerks," 129. 

Jesperson, Hans, conviction of polygamy, 
599- 

Jews, ancestors of Indians, 53, 90; looked-for 
return to Jerusalem, 64. 

John the Baptist, in Mormon Bible, 96 ; ap- 
pearance to Smith, 99. 

Johnson, Bishop, part in Parrish murders, 
448. 

Johnson, J., murder of, 536. 

Johnson, Lyman E., charges against, 81 ; trial 
of, 154 ; expelled, 188. 

Johnson, Nephi, testimony about Mountain 
Meadows Massacre, 532. 

Johnston, Albert Sidney, federal commander 
in the Mormon " war," 482 ; march to Utah, 
491; on Mormon purpose, 494; refusal of 
Young's offer of provisions, 503 note; 
policy stated, 506 ; defends Hurt, 507 ; re- 
ply to Gov. Cumming, 513 note ; Floyd's 
order to, 535. 

" Josephites." See Reorganized Church. 

Journal of Discourses, viii. 

K 

Kane, Col. T. L., on defiling of the Nauvoo 
Temple, 355; ingenuity of the Mormon 
emigrants, 365; letter to Jesse C. Little, 
372; trip to Nauvoo and the Missouri 
camps, 374; reported Mormon baptism, 
374; character as a Mormon agent, 374; 
mortality in the Missouri camps, 377 ; de- 
scription of Utah crickets, 400; part in 
appointment of Young as governor of Utah, 
459 ; work in New York, 479 ; offer to me- 
diate, letters from Buchanan, 501; inter- 
views with Mormon leaders in Utah, 502 ; 
at Camp Scott, 503 ; telegram to Washing- 
ton, 515 note. 

Kanesville, 393, 394. 

Kearney, Gen. S. F., proposition about the 
Battalion, 371. 

Keeley, James, professor at Nauvoo, 242. 

Kelsey, E. B., in " New Movement," 561, 565. 

Kendall, postmaster general, Brannan's story 
about, 388. 

Kennedy, J. H., on Rigdon, 123 note. 

Kimball, Heber C, mission to England, 229; 
statements in England, 231 ; against Rig- 
don, 317; Young's counsellor, 330; suffer- 
ings of family during the migration, 364 ; 
leads a party across the plains, 394 ; pic- 



INDEX 



627 



tures of famine in Utah, 408 ; chief justice 
State of Deseret, 429 ; on Young's author- 
ity, 437, 454; warnings to the flock, 444, 
445, 497 ; on Young's trusteeship, 473 ; 
defiance of the federal government, 497 ; 
indicted for treason, 500; on woman's duty, 
585 ; on a fair division of female converts, 
586. 

Kimball, Hiram, Smith's revelation about, 
114. 

Kimball, W. H., indictment for murder, 569. 

Kinderhook plates, history of, 86. 

King, Judge A. A., hearings before, 210-215. 

Kinney, John F., chief justice of Utah Terri- 
tory, 467 ; his store and boarding-house, 
469 ; reappointment, 537 ; against Morris- 
ites, 541, 542; removed, 550. 

Kirtland, O., visitors to, 123 ; vagaries of con- 
verts, 128, 130; changed plans for church 
headquarters, 142; business enterprises 
(bank, etc.), 143-151 ; laying out the town, 
144; Temple, 145, 160; bank, 148-152; 
fight at a church service, 158 ; final struggle 
and flight of Smith and Rigdon, 159, 160; 
Kirtland bank-bills in Utah, 439. 

Klingensmith, part in Mountain Meadows 
Massacre, 526-530. 

Knight, J., Sr., conversion of, 100. 

Knight, S., part in Mountain Meadows Mas- 
sacre, 522 ff. 

L 

La Crosse, Wis., Stake at, 324. 
Lahontan's claims to discovery, 395. 
Lam an, 94. 

Lamanites, 53 ; Cowdery's mission to, 85, 
102, 122, 163 ; wars of, 91-94. See Ind- 
ians. 

Land, Mormon views of, 164, 396, 397, 398 

note, 438, 472-474. 
Land speculation, 144 ; in Kirtland, 144, 159, 

160. 

Lang, Andrew, on crystal-gazing, 17, 18. 

Lapham, Fayette, interview with Joseph 
Smith, Sr., 19, 29. 

Laramie, Fort, Utah pioneers at, 383. 

Latter-Day Saints, why so called, 108. 

Law, William, a counsellor, 236 ; denial of a 
revelation, 248 ; connection with the church, 
290 ; knowledge of polygamy, 291 ; Smith's 
charges against, 293 ; flight from Nauvoo, 
295- 

Law, Wilson, offices, 290 ; connection with 
the Expositor, 291-295 ; flight from Nauvoo, 
295- 

Lawrence, H. W., Young's flu-eat about, 560 ; 

in " New Movement," 561. 
Lee, John D., conversion to Mormonism, 

126; on Anthon's statement, 140; Danite 



signs, 192; on Missouri plundering, 202, 
211 ; a missionary, 228 ; on Smith's presi- 
dential candidacy, 254; his plural wives, 
276,277; adoption by Young, 289; Mor- 
mon faith in Smith, 309 ; on " secret works," 
316 note; on successorship to Smith, 322; 
on cause of Mormon troubles, 361 ; on es- 
capes from Utah, 450 note ; illustration of 
blood atonement, 456 ; part in Mountain 
Meadows Massacre, 520-531 ; trial and 
execution, 531, 532. 

Legion, Nauvoo, organization of, 237; an 
army officer on, 239; appearance of, 239; 
surrender of arms, 299 ; as sheriff's posse, 
336 ; mobilization of in the " war " in Utah, 
484 ; in Camp Weber, 498 ; suppression of 
by Governor Shaffer, 567. 

Lewis, Catherine, concerning plural wives, 
275 note. 

Lewis, Hiel and Joseph, on Smith's first ac- 
count of the golden plates, 28. 

Liberty, Mo., Mormon prisoners in, 212. 

Lincoln, Abraham, name scratched by Mor- 
mons, 244; vote for Nauvoo charter, 244; 
signs anti-polygamy bill, 540 ; Young and 
G. A. Smith on, 543 ; petition to, 548 ; 
policy toward Mormons, 550. 

Little, Jesse C, proposition to federal author- 
ities, 372. 

Loba, F., story of escape from Utah, 451. 

Lucas, Gen. S. D., march to Far West, 207 ; 
terms of surrender, 208. 

Lucas, governor of Iowa, on Mormons, 221. 

Lyman, Amasa W., against Rigdon, 317; 
leader of party across the plains, 394; 
defiance of federal government, 497; in 
" New Movement," 561. 

Lynch, J., affidavit about Mountain Mead- 
ows Massacre, 524. 

Lyon's revelation, 274. 

M 

Mack, Solomon, 8. 

Mails, alleged tampering with, 440, 474, 480. 

Mansion House, Nauvoo, 241. 

" Manuscript Found," history of, and connec- 
tion with the Mormon Bible, 50-58. 

McCullough, Maj. Ben. See Peace Com- 
mission. 

McDonald of Indiana, on Babbitt's admis- 
sion, 431. 

McDougal, T. A., on Hancock County com- 
mission, 337. 

McFarland, D., part in Mountain Meadows 
Massacre, 523. 

McKean, J. B., chief justice of Utah Territory, 
567; overruled by Supreme Court, 570; 
Ann Eliza's divorce suit, 573 ; Hawkins's 
sentence, 592. 



628 



INDEX 



McKinstry, Mrs., affidavit of, 52. 
McLean, H. H., kills P. P. Pratt, 519. 
McLellin, W. E., trial of, 154; revelation 
about, 274. 

McMurdy, S., part in Mountain Meadows 

Massacre, 522 ff. 
McMurrin, shooting of, 599. 
Mann, S. A., secretary of Utah Territory, 567. 
Marcy, Capt. R. B., John Taylor's letter to, 

496 ; expedition to New Mexico, 499. 
Markham, S., affidavit, 271 ; captain of Utah 

pioneers, 381, 
Marks, W., defends Rigdon, 317; alliance 

with Emma, 323. 
Marriage, rule in" Book of Commandments," 

157. 

Marsh, T. B., on church dissensions, 188 ; 

leaves the church, 189; affidavit of, 213; 

excommunicated, 213 note. 
Marshals, conflict of authority, 470, 547, 568 ; 

Sup. Court decision, 569; Poland Bill, 572. 
Matlack, W. E., editor of Hancock Eagle, 

345- 

Medill, Joseph, visit to Utah, 556. 

Melchisedec, priesthood of, 99, 120. 

Messenger and Advocate, viii. 

Mexico, Mormon settlements in, 614. 

Migration to Utah, destination not foreseen, 
357. 358. 385-387 ; explanation to the Mor- 
mon people, 358; preparations for, 359; 
first departures from Nauvoo, 362; march 
to the Missouri, 363-370; suffering of the 
expelled remnant, 367-369; the line of 
march, 369 ; in camps on the Missouri, 
375-378 ; mortality in the camps, 376, 377 ; 
trip of the pioneers, 380-391 ; the following 
companies, 392-394. 

Miles, John, tried for polygamy, 594. 

Millennial Star, vii ; predicts destruction of 
the Union, 543. 

Millennium, Disciples' and Mormons' belief, 
63 ; Mormon expectation of, 108. 

Milman, on inconsistency, 273 note. 

Mining, first discovery of ore in Utah, 550; 
" Reformers' " views, 564 ; Emma mine, 570. 

Miracles, modern, 5, 6; first Mormon, 103; 
in Ohio and England, 339 ; denial by Smith, 
139 note ; use of, in England, 231. 

Missions, compulsory character, 437, 438; of 
to-day, 611. 

Missouri, at time of Mormon arrival, 161, 
162; Smith's first visits, 167, 168; Jackson 
County troubles, 168-184 ; politics, 198 ; 
pillaging and burning, 202 ; fate of Mormon 
persecutors, 204; alleged death sentence of 
Smith and others, 208 ; Mormon object in, 
210; Mormon petition to legislature, 216 ; 
departure from the state, 217 ; pecuniary 
losses in, 217. See Clay, Daviess, and 
Jackson counties, Independence. 



Moffat, David, catechism, 116. 
Mohammed and Smith, 109 note. 
Money-digging, 15, 16, 18-22. 
Morgan, James D., in Hancock County, 111., 
343- 

Mormon (name), origin of, 107, 108. 

Mormon (persons), 91. 

Mormon (place), 94. 

Mormon Bible. See Bible. 

" Mormon, Book of." See Bible. 

Mormon, Book of (subdivision of Bible), why 

written, 91. 
Mormon church. See Church. 
Mormon Hill, 31. 
Mormonism of to-day, 609-618. 
Moroni, 31, 92. 

Morrill, J. S., anti-polygamy bill, 590. 
Morris, Joseph, leader of Morrisites, 540, 
54i. 

Morrisites, origin and punishment, 540, 541 ; 
pardon of, 542. 

Morton, Senator O. P., influence, 570. 

Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History," Rig- 
don's knowledge of, 75. 

Mountain Meadows Massacre, 517-534. 

Mt. Pisgah, camp at, 366 ; privations at, 369, 
37°. 

Mummies at Kirtland, 139-141, 151. 
Murders, church-inspired, 448-451; number 

in Utah, 453 note; Brassfield, Robinson, 

and others, 554, 555 ; apprehension in Salt 

Lake City, 558. 
Murray, E. H., governor of Utah Territory, 

573- 

N 

Nauvoo House, Bible Ms. in corner-stone, 44 ; 
revelation about, 235 ; description and use, 
241. 

Nauvoo, Mormon settlement, 223-225 ; origin 
of name, 225 ; unhealthfulness, 225, 226 ; 
growth in population, 227; foreign immi- 
gration, 228 ; Galland's plan for, 234 ; reve- 
lation about, 235 ; provisions of city charter, 

236, 237 ; Legion authorized, 237 ; Mansion 
House, 241; Hall of Seventies, 241; Uni- 
versity, 242; powers of Municipal Court, 

237, 247; ordinances of City Council, 250; 
social conditions, 256-261 ; land sales, 257, 
258 ; charges of thieving examined, 258- 
261; polygamy practised, 274-280; renewed 
charges of stealing, 330; hard times in, in 
1845, 332; the Neighbor's comments on 
the repeal of the charter, 333; evacuation 
of the city by the Mormons, 344-351 ; " last 
Mormon war," 347-351 ; indictments for 
counterfeiting, 344 ; arrival of new citizens, 
344 ; Hancock Eagle issued, 345 ; terms of 
final surrender, 349; after the evacuation, 
350, 356; completion and description of the 



INDEX 



629 



Temple, 353-356 ; preparations for the move 
to the Far West, 359 ; real estate sales, 361. 
Neighbor, Nauvoo, 253. 

Nephi, Heaven's messenger, 31 ; substitution 

of translation from, 45; plates of, 91; a 

leader, 94. 
Nephites, 53, 91-94. 
Nevada, settlement of, 472 note. 
New Citizens at Nauvoo, 345 ; position during 

" last Mormon war," 346. 
Newell, Grandison, alleged plot against, 154 ; 

rumored warrant for Mormon leaders, 159. 
New Jerusalem, promise of, 163. 
" New Movement," 561-566. 
New York Mormons, vote to move west of 

the Rockies, 359 ; Brannan's emigrants to 

California, 387, 388, 

O 

Oaths, Danite, 192,334; Endowment House, 
354> 355. 595 I against the government, 430. 

Oglesby, Gov. R. J., visit to Utah, 556. 

Ohio, Mormon move to, revealed, 106; arri- 
val of missionaries, 122; crowds to hear 
new doctrines, 123. See Kirtland. 

Oneida Community, treatment of, 135. 

" Oneness," organization, 332. 

P 

Pack, John, first major of Utah pioneers, 381. 
Paddock, A. S., member Utah Commission, 
597- 

Page, Hiram, testimony regarding the plates, 
79; occupation, 85; use of " peek-stone," 
and rebuke therefor, 85. 

Page, John E., with Strang, 325. 

Papyri, the Kirtland, 140. 

Parish, Warren, Smith on, 155 ; attack on 
William Smith, 158; responsibility for 
bank failure, 158. 

Parker, Major, in Nauvoo, 347, 348. 

Parks, Gen., report to Gen. Atchison, 201. 

Parrish murders, 448-450. 

Partridge, Edward, first bishop, 120; in Mis- 
souri, 167; tarred, 174; opposition to new 
settlement, 222. 

Patriarch, Joseph, Sr., the first, 121; price of 
blessings, 121; later patriarchs, 121, 398. 

Patterson, Pittsburg printer, 51-53. 

Patterson, Robert, pamphlet on Spaulding 
MS., 55, 67. 

Patton, D. W. (Capt. Fear* Not), killed at 
Crooked River, 203. 

Peace Commission, on Mormon exodus, 509; 
appointment of, and instructions, 511 ; on 
Gov. Cumming, 512; consultations with 
Young, 512, 513. 

" Peek-stone," Smith's, 20-22; Miss Chase's, 



34; Hiram Page's, 85; use in revelations, 
111; female rival in Ohio, 154. 
Peep 0' Day, 562. 

Penrose, C. W., on blood atonement, 455 

note ; author of " Zion," 513. 
People's Party, on test oath, 598 ; dissolution 

of, 606. 

Perpetual Emigrating Fund, 414 note; rate 

to hand-cart emigrants, 419. 
Peterson, Z., ordered West, 72; punishment, 

122; arrival in Missouri, 162, 163. 
Pettigrew, J. R., member Utah commission, 

597- 

Phelps, W. W., expectation of millennium, 
109 note; printer in Missouri, biography, 
167; mission to Gov. Dunklin, 176; on 
Clay County treatment, 185 ; deposed on 
charges, 188 ; testimony against Mormon 
leaders, 213 ; Smith on, 215 ; on origin of 
polygamy, 272 note; at Expositor trial, 
294 ; statement to the church, 314 ; against 
Rigdon at Nauvoo, 315, 317. 

Pierce, Pres. F., nominations for governor 
of Utah Territory, 468,469; bad judicial 
appointments, 469. 

Pioneers to Utah, origin of, 379; trip across 
the plains, 380-391 ; return trip, 392. 

Plates, the golden, witnesses to, 78-86 ; made 
by Mormon, 91, 92; origin of, 94; plates 
still buried, 92 note. See Bible. 

Poland Bill, 571. 

Polk, Pres. J. K., Mormon address to, 357. 
Polyandry, 288 note. 

Polygamy, charge and denial of, in Ohio, £ 
157; first suggested to Smith, 158; origin 
of the idea, 272-274; Mormon Bible for- 
bids, 272, 273T^earTy revelations against, 
273 ; practice in Nauvoo, 274-280 ; ordered 
by an angel, 275 ; Lee on, 276 ; writing of 
the revelation, 279; Young on original 
copy, 280; denials and their value, 280 . 
note; Rigdon's innocence in the matter, 
280, 281; public announcement, 282; text 
of revelation, 282-285; Orson Pratt on, 
285, 286; obligatory character, 286, 553, 
597, 615; effect in England, 286, 287; 
" sealing," 287, 288 ; Christ an alleged 
polygamist, 288; denial of the revelation 
at Nauvoo, 293, 294; view of, in church 
incorporation act, 440; denial of, by Col. 
Kane, 460; Judge Brocchus's criticism of, 
462; denial of, by J. M. Grant, 465 note; 
Judge Eckles's charge to the grand jury, 
514; Lincoln signs anti-polygamy bill, 540; 
Gov. Harding on, 546; Colfax's proposi- 
tion to Young, 552; Deseret News' view, 
553 ; social aspects of, 582-589 ; Greeley on 
woman's place in Utah, 584; the division 
of female converts, 585 ; a first wife's view, 
586; Pres. Cleveland's view of, 588; leg- 



630 



INDEX 



islation concerning, 590-605 ; appeal of 
women against, 594; defiance of the Ed- 
munds law, 597-600; proposed law of 
1890, 602; Woodruff's manifesto, 602-609; 
Roberts case, 604 ; Utah law of 1901, 605 ; 
Mormon fear of a constitutional amend- 
ment, 605, 616; anxiety of the church to 
return to polygamy, 615; modern Mormon 
women's view of, 615. 

Poor, support of the, 146. 

Porter, Fitz John, in Mormon " war," 482. 

Post-offices of the Plains, 380. 

Potter, G., part in Parrish murders, 448, 449. 

Powell, L. W. See Peace Commission. 

Pratt, Orson, on Anthon's statement, 40; on 
Rafinesque's glyphs, 87 ; on Mormon Bible, 
89; sketch of, 89; on Roman Catholic 
church, 99 note ; sermon on future posses- 
sion of the earth, no; rebuke by Young, 
117; mission to England, 229; professor 
at Nauvoo, 242; Smith's affair with Mrs. 
Pratt, 270 ; effect of spiritual wife doctrine, 
270 note ; discourse announcing polygamy, 
285, 286 ; on completion of Nauvoo Temple, 
353; protest against the banishment of 
Mormons, 358 ; camp experience on the 
trip to the Missouri, 364; observations 
during the pioneer trip, 382 ; call for New 
York emigrants to California, 387 ; advance 
march to Great Salt Lake Valley, 389-391 ; 
on proposed settlement in Iowa, 393 ; ap- 
peal for mechanics, 403; in charge of 
English emigration, 414; on first Utah 
government, 429 ; charges against the gov- 
ernment, 475 ; requests federal officers to 
resign, 548. 

Pratt, P. P., stories about the golden plates, 
26, 36; on Anthon's statement, 40; service 
to the church, 59 ; acquaintance with Rig- 
don, 71 ; visit to Smith, 71 ; mission to Ohio, 
72; Smith's revealing, in; trial of, 154; 
rebellious spirit, 155 ; censure of Smith and 
Rigdon, 157; arrival in Missouri, 162, 163; 
on Jackson County "mob," 172; asks for 
a warrant, 178 ; on tithing, 194 ; surrender 
at Far West, 208 ; commitment, 214 ; mis- 
sion to England, 229; on fate of Smith's 
murderers, 308 ; sustains Young at Nauvoo, 
315, 317; Emma's church council, 323; on 
migration to the Far West, 358 ; departure 
from Nauvoo, 362 note; selects site for 
camp at Mt. Pisgah, 366 ; conveyer of Bat- 
talion fund, 372; life in Winter Quarters, 
377 ; on Brannan, 387 ; leader of the " first 
migration," 392; early view of Salt Lake 
City, 398 ; privations in Salt Lake City, 399 ; 
glowing report to England, 401 ; his death, . 
519. 

Preface to first edition Mormon Bible, 45. 
Prentiss, B. M., in Hancock County, 111., 343. 



Presidency, First.establishment of, 120 ; reason 
for, 155. 

Presidential candidacy, Smith's, 250-255. 
Priests, duties of, 101. 

Prisoners, Mormon, in Missouri, 211, 212, 215. 
Prophet, Smith's authorization as, 103. 
Prophet, in New York, 334 ; Brannan editor, 
387. 

Proselyting, origin of, 131 ; progress in the 
United States, 228, 229; in England, 229- 
233; Young's plan, 329; to-day's system, 
611, 612. 

Q 

Quails, visitation of, 368. 

Quincy, 111., arrival of Smith, 216; welcome 
to Mormons, 221 ; anti-Mormon meeting, 
338 ; reply to Mormons, 339 ; peace meet- 
ing, 349- 

Quincy, Josiah, visit to Nauvoo, 140 note; 

Smith's view of himself as a prophet. 266; 

on Smith's future influence, 618. 
Quorums, 120. 

R 

Rafinesque's glyphs, 87. 
Ramsey, A., member of Utah commission, 
597- 

Rawlins, Sec. J. A., view of Utah situation, 
567. 

Rawlins, J. L., enabling act, 607. 

Reed, Amos, secretary of Utah Territory, 550. 

"Reformation, The" (1856), its beginning, 

aims, and doings, 441-447. 
" Reformation, The." See " New Movement." 
Reid, H. P., counsel for Smith, 299. 
Reid, L. H., chief justice of Utah Territory, 

467. 

Remick, Smith's dealings with, 264. 

Reorganized Church, title to Kirtland Temple 
and legal status, 160 ; claim to Temple lot 
at Independence, Mo., 183 note ; organiza- 
tion and membership, 223, 224; in Utah, 
562-564. 

Republican National Convention of 1856, on 

polygamy, 476. 
Resurrection, Smith's view, 116. 
Return, 44. 

Revelations, Joseph Smith, Jr.'s, about the 
golden plates, 30-32; plates to be secret, 
38 ; Harris's wickedness, 43 ; directing Har- 
ris, 49; new translation of Scriptures or- 
dered, 68-71; to P. P. Pratt, et al., 71; 
concerning exhibition of the plates, 79 ; 
concerning Cowdery's honesty, 80 ; Har- 
ris's talkativeness, 79 ; form of church gov- 
ernment, 100, 101 ; Whitmer on, 101 ; about 
other revealers, 101 ; authorization to Cow- 
dery and its results, 101, 102 ; Smith to be 
the leader and prophet, 102 ; requiring re- 



INDEX 



631 



baptism, 103; for Smith's support, 104; 
Rigdon's authority, 106; move to Ohio 
ordered, 106 ; speedy millennium, 109 ; how 
revelations were received by Smith, in; 
about Vienna Jaques, in ; publication of 
revelations, 112, 113; failures of, 113, 114; 
number of, by years, 114; Young's refusal 
to reveal, 115; imitators of Smith, 34, 85, 
115, 154; about First Presidency and other 
offices, 120; Stakes, 120; elders to travel, 
131; Smith's authority and support, 132; 
Rigdon's support, 132; rebuke of Rigdon, 
133 ; westward move and New Jerusalem, 
142 ; consecration of property, 145 ; about 
debts, 146, 164; Salem, Mass., trip, 147; 
New Jerusalem and Zion promised, 163; 
Saints' right to Zion, 164, 165 ; site of Zion, 
166; Zion not to be moved, 179; army of 
Zion, promises not fulfilled, 180, 181 ; per- 
mitting murder, 190; tithing, 193, 194; 
Adam-ondi-Ahman, 195 ; excusing aban- 
donment of Zion, 224; about Nauvoo, 235, 
236; check on Smith's revelations, 266; 
against polygamy, 273 ; about McLellin, 
274 ; the revelation of polygamy, kept secret, 
276; promulgation of the revelation in 
Utah, 285; effect in England, 286; about 
Brigham Young, 329 ; Brigham Young on, 
329, 435; Young's only revelation, 379; by 
Joseph Morris, 540. 
Reynolds, George, conviction of polygamy, 
592. 

Rich, C. C, one of the Twelve, 330. 

Richards, F. D., one of the Twelve, 330; suf- 
ferings of family during the migration, 
364; passes hand-cart emigrants, 421 ; de- 
nounced by Young, 426. 

Richards, Willard, plan for flight from Nau- 
voo, 299; account of the Smiths' murder, 
305 ; appeal for peace, 313 ; statement to 
the church, 314; Young's counsellor, 330; 
reply to Hancock County commission, 340; 
leader of party across the plains, 394. 

Richmond, Mo., Mormon prison, 211. 

Rigdon, Nancy, testimony for Mormons, 
214; Smith's attempt with, 270. 

Rigdon, Sidney, Smith's early acquaintance 
with, 16, 22, 23, 43, 67; Mrs. Davison on, 
52; denial by, 53; John Hyde, Jr., on, 
59; sketch of in Smith's autobiography, 
59; early church connections, 59-61; 
changed religious views, 60; religious 
temperament, 61 ; jealousy of the Camp- 
bells, 63; loreknowledge of the Mormon 
Bible, 65, 66; knowledge of Spaulding's 
Ms., 66, 67 ; share in translation of 
Scriptures, 68-71 ; conversion to Mormon 
faith, 71-73; use and knowledge of the 
" Everlasting Gospel," 74-77 ; his learning, 
75 ; arraignment of Cowdery, et al., 8i, 82; 



Prof. Whitsitt's view, 92 note; originator 
of church government, 101 ; visit to Pal- 
myra, 103; authority revealed, 106; in First 
Presidency, 120; on Cowdery, 122; effect 
of his conversion, 123 ; his plan, 123 note ; 
revelation about his support, 132 ; rebuked 
by Smith, 132; tarred and feathered, 133- 
135 ; tried and deprived of license, 136 ; 
seeing the Lord, 138; miracle working, 
139 ; share of Kirtland property, 146-152 ; 
Smith's contempt for, 153 ; last appearance 
at Kirtland, 159; charge of cowardice, 
168; welcome at Far West, 187; "salt 
sermon," 196; with volunteers for Daviess 
County, 198 ; studies law, 200 note ; sur- 
rendered at Far West, 208 ; a prisoner, 211, 
212 ; trial of, 212-215 ; appeal to the Amer- 
ican people, 214; escape from prison, 215; 
letters of introduction, 221 ; opposes land 
purchase, 222 ; signs Hotchkiss's note, 224 ; 
one of Smith's counsellors, 236; order 
concerning Legion, 237; on Bennett, 238; 
attorney-at-law and postmaster, 238 ; pro- 
fessor at Nauvoo, 242; secures opinion for 
Smith, 246; named for Vice President, 253 ; 
Smith's complaints against, in Nauvoo, 263 ; 
innocence about polygamy, 272, 273, 278, 
280, 281 ; course after Smith's death, 314, 
315 ; trial and expulsion from the church, 
316-318 ; his Church of Christ in Pennsyl- 
vania, 318, 319; remarkable visions there, 
318, 319; last days in Friendship, N.Y., 
319; alleged mental unsoundness, 318; 
refusal to rejoin the Mormons, 319, 320 
note; interesting letter from, 320. 

Roberts, B. H., refused seat in Congress, 604. 

Robinson, Ebenezer, sketch of, 44; second 
copy of the Mormon Bible, 44; on Salem 
trip, 148; on Danites, 190; on tithing, 193; 
on Rigdon's "salt sermon," 197; prisoner 
in Missouri, 211 ; taught polygamy, 277, 
278. 

Robinson, G. W., surrender of at, Far West, 
208 ; on Nancy Rigdon scandal, 271. 

Robinson, J. King, murder of, 554. 

Rockwell, Porter P., alleged assassination of 
Gov. Boggs, 245 ; acquittal, 250 ; Lieut. 
Worrell's murder, 336 ; part in Aikin mur- 
ders, 451 ; warns Young of the approach 
of troops, 483; indicted for treason, 500; 
at peace conference, 513 ; shoots one of 
Gov. Dawson's assailants, 539 ; indicted for 
murder, 567. 

Roman Catholic church, Mormon view of, 
99 note. 

Rosa, Dr. Storm, on Rigdon, 66. 
Rowe, H., on spiritual wife doctrine, 287. 
Ruddock, S. A., claim to discovery, 395. 
Rudolph, Z., recollections of Rigdon, 67. 
Ruskin's religious views, 127. 



632 



INDEX 



Ryder, Symonds, conversion, 123, 126; on 

tarring of Smith, 134. 
Ryland, Judge, advice to Mormons, 178, 182. 

S 

Salem, Mass., trip, 147. 

Salt Lake City, laid out, 397; name selected, 
398 ; first cabins, 398 ; land division, 398 ; 
census in 1848, 398, 402; scarcity of food, 
399, 404, 408 ; mills, bridges, and schools, 
402 ; plans for manufactories, 402 ; picture 
of, in 1849, 404 ; bargains from gold seekers, 
406; duties levied, 431; city charter, 438 ; 
bishops' courts, 439; filth and abomina- 
tion, 442; entrance of Gentile merchants, 
557; Mormon household arrangements, 
583; Chamber of Commerce organized, 
601. 

" Salt sermon," by Rigdon, 196-198. 

Sandwich Islands Spaulding Ms., 56. 

San Pete affair, 457. 

School of the Prophets, 564. 

Schouler, James, on Joseph Smith, 609. 

Scott, Walter, associate of Rigdon and the 
Campbells, 60; on millennium, 63, 64. 

Scott, Gen. Winfield, in Mormon " war," 481. 

Scriptures, Smith's and Rigdon's translation 
of, 68-71. 

" Sealing," doctrine of, 287, 288. 

Seer, Orson Pratt's, on Roman Catholic 
church, 99 note; on the federal govern- 
ment, 475 ; Young's authority in plural 
marriages, 586, 587. 

Sermon, first Mormon, 103 ; Rigdon's " salt," 
196-198. 

Seventies, Quorums of, 120. 

Shaffer, J. W., governor of Utah Territory, 
567; suppression of the Nauvoo legion, 
5°7- 

Shakespeare a plagiarist, 96. 

Sharp, T. C, editor, indictment of, 308 ; in- 
citement to hostilities, 346. 

Shaver, L., associate justice of Utah, 467. 

Sheen, I., memorial against admission of 
Deseret, 430. 

Sherman, W. H., in " New Movement," 561. 

Sherman, Gen. W. T., warning to Young, 
554- 

Signal, Warsaw, appeal to non-Mormons, 

338 ; declares war, 346. 
Sinclair, C. E., associate justice of Utah, 478. 
Singleton, Col., in command of posse, 347. 
Slater, Nelson, book, " Fruits of Mormonism," 

440. 

Slavery, Mormon views, 172 note. 
Smalling, Cyrus, on Kirtland Bank, 149; 

Smith on, 156. 
Smith, Alexander, visit to Salt Lake City, 

5<>3. 



I Smith, Alfred, Gladdenite, 436. 

Smith, Capt., of Carthage Grays, 303. 

Smith, David Hyrum, visit to Utah, 563. 

Smith, Don Carlos, against polygamy, 277. 

Smith, Emma, married to Joseph, Jr., 24; 
connection with the golden plates, 28 ; mar- 
ried to Bidamon, 44; scribe to Joseph, 45, 
102; opposition to polygamy, 279, 280; 
on the prophet's burial place, 307 ; plan for 
church government, 323 ; reported intended 
exposure, 323; Young's opinion of, 563. 

Smith family, origin, 8; character, 11, 13, 14. 

Smith, F. M., on the prophet's burial place, 
308. 

Smith, George A., mission to England, 229; 
on the migration from Nauvoo, 362 note; 
proposed settlement in Iowa, 393 ; part in 
Mountain Meadows Massacre, 528, 532 ; on 
Lincoln, 543 ; petition to Congress, 591. 

Smith, Hyrum, part in publication of the 
Bible, 47; testimony regarding the plates, 
79; conversion of, 100; early desire to 
preach, 100 note ; letter to Missouri, 155 ; 
on Bennett, 238 ; patriarch, 248 ; revelation 
in favor of Hoge, 248 ; on thieving at 
Nauvoo, 259, 260 ; appeal for Rigdon, 264 
note; denounces polygamy, 276; teaches 
it, 278, 291 ; reads revelation to Emma, 
279 ; defence of Laws, 291 ; candidate for 
legislature, 293; charges against W. Law, 
293; denial of polygamy revelation, 293; 
at Expositor trial, 293, 294 ; plan for flight, 
299 ; story of his murder, 301-306. 

Smith, John, patriarch, 398. 

Smith, Joseph, Jr., "History of" (autobi- 
ography) , vii ; lack of education, 12, 19, 
48, 89; two pictures of, in early life, 12, 13 ; 
untruthfulness, 14 ; a money-digger, 16, 18- 
22 ; first trip to Pennsylvania, 16 ; intro- 
duction to crystal-gazing, 16, 18-20; 
"peek-stone," discovery of and use, 20-22; 
elopement with Emma Hale, 24; confes- 
sion to Peter Ingersol, 24 ; his account of 
the revelation and delivery of the golden 
plates, 30-32 ; lapse from virtue, 30 ; journey 
with plates to Pennsylvania, 36 ; translation 
of plates, 37 ; alarm over theft of translated 
pages, 42 ; " revelations " about Harris, 43, 
49; substitute translation, 45; removal to 
Whitmer's house, 46 ; publication of Bible, 
47-49 ; Albert Chandler's recollections of, 
48 ; how associated with Rigdon, 46, 47 ; 
Pres. Fairchild on, 68 ; share in new trans- 
lation of Scriptures, 68-71; his coming 
foretold, 70; abuse of Harris, 84; transla- 
tion of Kinderhook plates, 87 ; authorized 
to baptize, etc., 99; ordained, 100; early 
leadership, 101, 102; charges against, dis- 
missed, 104 ; support ordered, 104 ; on the 
word "Mormon," 108; revelations, bow 



INDEX 



633 



received, in; illustrations of failures, 113, 
114; number of, by years, 114; reckless use 
of, 114; on Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
116; on resurrection, 116; "articles of 
faith," 118; baptism of the dead, 118; in 
First Presidency, 120; goes to Ohio, 122; 
restrains Kirtland converts, 130; supreme 
authority, 132; to have a house, 132; re- 
bukes Rigdon, 132; tarred and feathered, 
133-135 ; defeats Rigdon, 136 ; on seeing 
the Lord, 138 ; miracle working, 139; denial 
of miraculous power, 139 note ; translation 
of " Book of Abraham," 140; linguistic 
accomplishments tested, 141 ; westward 
move ordered, 142; Ohio business enter- 
prises, 143-151 ; Young's picture of, as a 
storekeeper, 143 ; plans Kirtland Temple, 
145 ; share of Kirtland property, 146 ; Salem, 
Mass., trip, 147; Kirtland Bank, 148-152; 
lack of dignity, 153 ; contempt for Rigdon, 
153 ; plot against Newell, 154 ; picture of 
his flock, 155 ; moral character attacked, 
104, 156, 157 ; denial of polygamy, 157, 272- 
274 ; self-defence at Kirtland, 159 ; flight 
from Kirtland, 159; first visits to Missouri, 
166-168 ; charge of cowardice, 168 ; direc- 
tion to Saints in Jackson County, 176, 179 ; 
with Army of Zion, 180, 181 ; on the drown- 
ing of non-Mormons, 182; arrival at Far 
West, 187 ; advice looking to Danites, 190 ; 
proposed salary, 193 ; early mistakes in 
Missouri, 195; with volunteers to Daviess 
County, 198 ; arrest of, at Far West, 199 ; 
studies law, 200 note; to drive out non- 
Mormons, 201 ; " Fur Company " ordered, 
202; appeal for revenge, 203 ; surrendered 
at Far West, 208; a prisoner, 211, 212; 
hearing of, 212-215 ; Marsh on his ambition, 
213; revelations and epistles written in 
prison, 215; escape to Illinois, 216; selects 
new place of settlement, 223 ; on land pur- 
chases, 224; trouble with Hotchkiss, 225; 
deception of immigrants, 225 ; revelation 
about Nauvoo, 235, 236; again declared 
head of the church, 236 ; order concerning 
Legion, 237 ; on Bennett, 238 ; lieutenant 
general, 239; opposition to Van Buren, 242, 
243 ; advice to Mormon voters, 244 ; alleged 
order for Gov. Boggs's assassination, 245 
note ; arrest on this charge, 246 ; conceal- 
ment and proposed flight, 246; rearrest and 
discharge, 246; another indictment and 
arrest, 247 ; released by his own court, 247 ; 
betrayal of Walker, 248 ; correspondence 
with Clay and Calhoun, 250, 251; views on 
national politics, 252; named for President, 
253 ; campaign work for him in the East, 
254 ; monopoly as land agent, 257, 258 ; on 
thieving, 259; troubles in Nauvoo, 262; 
complaints against Rigdon, 263 ; appeal to 



bankruptcy act, 264 ; dealing with Remick, 
264 ; city specie payment ordinance, 265 ; 
secular pursuits, 265-267 ; view of himself 
as a prophet, 266 ; Satan's aims, 266 ; check 
on his revelations, 266 ; prediction of the 
War of the Rebellion, 267; falling out with 
Bennett, 268-270; scandal about Mrs. 
Pratt and Nancy Rigdon, 270 ; quarrel with 
F. M. Higbee, 271 ; marries Eliza R. Snow, 
275; polygamy ordered by an angel, 275; 
his plural wives, 275 note, 279 note ; denial 
of polygamy, 276 ; references to the practice, 
278 ; writing of the revelation, 279 ; praise 
of the Laws, 290, 291 ; indicted for adultery 
and perjury, 290 note; view of hell, 292; 
method of securing spiritual wives, 292; 
political aims, 293 ; explanation of the reve- 
lation about polygamy, 294 ; action against 
the Expositor, 293, 296; writ secured by 
Expositor owners, 295 ; surrender to Gov. 
Ford, 298, 300 ; plan for flight, 299 ; story of 
his murder, 301-306 ; trial of the murderers, 
301 note, 308 ; funeral and burial place, 307, 
308; fate of some of his murderers, 308; 
review of his character, 309-312; personal 
appearance, 310; proposal in Utah to drop 
him and his Bible, 309 ; views on morality, 
310; death masks, 311 ; his sons, 322 note; 
Young's fidelity to, 328-329 ; plan for a 
westward move, 338 ; divided Mormon 
views of, 433. 

Smith, Joseph, Sr., career and reputation, in 
Vermont, 10; occupation in New York 
State, 11; money-digger, 15; dowser, 15; 
pedler of the new Bible, 49 ; testimony 
regarding the plates, 79 ; patriarch, 121 ; 
flight from Ohio, 121 note; causes a fight 
at Kirtland, 158. 

Smith, Joseph, III ; right to succeed the 
prophet, 322 ; head of Reorganized Church, 
323. 

Smith, Joseph F., secures Clayton's affidavit, 
279. 

Smith, Lot, burning of the government wagon 
trains, 489, 490; in charge of government 
cavalry, 540. 

Smith, Lucy, " History," vii ; family, 8 ; 
characteristics, 9; religious views, 25; 
statements about the golden plates, spec- 
tacles, and breastplate, 32-34 ; on Harris's 
early connection with the Bible enterprise, 
36; on Harris's punishment, 43; claim to 
have seen the plates, 86; on Rigdon, 137; 
on Kirtland church fight, 158 ; plea for 
prophet's son, 322 ; addresses a conference, 
322 ; her death, 323. 

Smith, "Mother." See Lucy. 

Smith, " Peg Leg," information to the pio- 
neers, 385. 

Smith, Samuel H., testimony regarding the 



634 



INDEX 



plates, 79; conversion of, 100; appeal for 
peace at Nauvoo, 313. 
Smith, William, attacked by Parish, 158; 
elected to Illinois legislature, 245 ; patri- 
arch, 334 ; cut off from the church, 335 ; 
his "proclamation," 335; last days, 335; 
memorial against admission of Deseret, 
430- 

Smoot, A. O., informs Young of approach of 
troops, 482. 

Snow, Eliza, on church fight at Kirtland, 
258 ; marriage to Smith, 275. 

Snow, Erastus, one of the Twelve, 330 ; first 
sight of Great Salt Lake Valley, 390, 391. 

Snow, Lorenzo, on proselyting in England, 
230; on Smith's presidential candidacy, 
254 ; taught polygamy, 274 ; his plural mar- 
riages, 275 ; one of the Twelve, 330 ; on 
Mormon destination, 358 ; a party at 
Mt. Pisgah, 370; elected president of the 
church, 601 note. 

Snow, Bishop Warren, part in San Pete 
affair, 457. 

Snow, Z., associate justice of Utah Territory, 
458. 

Songs, Mormon, 498. 

Spaulding manuscript, 50-58 ; history of 
manuscript found in the Sandwich Is- 
lands, 56-58 ; how incorporated in Mor- 
mon Bible, 66-68. 

Spaulding, Solomon, 50-55. 

Speaking with tongues, 138. 

Spencer, Orson, professor at Nauvoo, 242; 
criticised by Young, 426. 

Spiritual wives, Bennett's charges, 270; at 
Nauvoo, 274; doctrine of "sealing," 287; 
Smith's method of securing, 292. 

Stakes, origin of name, 120. 

Stansbury, Capt. H., on Young's dictatorship, 
438. 

Stanton, Sec. E. M., appeal to, 539; places 

Utah under military supervision, 544. 
State, admission of Utah, 606-608. 
Stealing. See Thieving. 

Stenhouse, T. B. H., sketch of, 86; on Mor- 
mon Bible, 89 ; on proselyting in Europe, 
232 note ; Joseph Smith's widows, 279 note ; 
polyandry, 288 ; hand-cart victims, 425 ; 
illustration of blood atonement, 456; on 
Cumming's reception, 508, 509; on Moun- 
tain Meadows Massacre, 518 note, 532, 534 
note ; on Gov. Dawson's punishment, 538 ; 
on Morrisite tragedy, 541 note ; apprehen- 
sion in Salt Lake City, 558 ; in " New 
Movement," 561 ; vile assault on him and 
his wife, 565 note ; on Young, 576, 577 ; his 
second marriage, 587. 

Steptoe, Col. E. J., arrival in Utah, 467 ; why 
he declined the governorship, 468, 469; 
saves Young from arrest, 549. 



Stewart of Nevada, influence of, 570. 

Stiles, G. P., associate justice of Utah Terri- 
tory, 467 ; effort to sustain federal mar- 
shals, 470; burning of his papers, 471; 
return to the East and report, 471. 

Stoal, Josiah, Smith's employer, 16. 

Stoddard, Calvin, call to preach, 105. 

Stokes, W., arrest of Lee, 533. 

Stout, H., indictment for murder, 569. 

Strang, J. J., emissaries to Europe, 84, 325 ; 
biography, 324; claim to Smith's succes- 
sorship, 324; his church in Wisconsin, 324, 
326. 

Strong of Pennsylvania, on Babbitt's admis- 
sion, 431. 

Struble, introduces anti-polygamy bill of 
1890, 602. 

T 

Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, 408, 409. 
Tarring and feathering of Smith and Rigdon, 
II3-I35- 

Taylor, John, mission to England, 229 ; edi- 
tor at Nauvoo, 253 ; wears endowment 
robe at Nauvoo, 278 ; plan for flight from 
Nauvoo, 299 ; account of the Smiths' mur- 
der, 305; wounded in Carthage jail, 306; 
appeal for peace at Nauvoo, 313; state- 
ment to the church, 314; against Rigdon, 
317 ; estimate of the migration, 365 ; truth 
about the Battalion, 373; misstatements to 
English converts, 411, 412; biography, 412 
note; associate justice, State of Deseret, 
429; letter to Capt. Marcy, 496; indicted 
for treason, 500 ; denunciation of the terri- 
torial officers, 548 ; rebuke by Judge Drake, 
548 ; discussion with Colfax, 556 ; petition 
to Congress, 591. 

Teachers, duty of, 101. 

Teachings, Mormon, 115-120. 

Teas, J. B., land at Commerce, 111., 223. 

Temples, baptism for the dead in, 119; at 
Kirtland, 145, 160; at Independence, Mo., 
consecrated, 167; corner-stone laying at 
Far West, 196, 218 ; at Nauvoo, revelation 
about, 235 ; description and cost, 240 ; ded- 
ication, 353 ; destruction of, 355, 356 ; site 
in Salt Lake City selected, 397 ; others in 
Utah, 411. 

Territory. See Utah. 

Texas, Wight's church in, 326. 

Thieving, in Missouri, 202 ; charges of, at Nau- 
voo, church admissions, 258-261 ; charge 
against Strang's followers, 325 ; renewed 
Hancock County complaints, 331, 337; 
Young's charges of, in Utah, 441, 442. 

Thomas, A. L., governor of Utah Territory, 
573 ; on church's position regarding polyg- 
amy, 601. 

Thomas, L. L., order to Young, 539. 



INDEX 



635 



Times and Seasons, vii. 

Tithing, origin of, 192, 193; income from, 
193; rule regarding, 194; Young's han- 
dling of the fund, 576, 577. 

Titus, John, chief justice of Utah Territory, 
550; Mormon appeal to, 559. 

Townsend, Rev. Jesse, Smith as viewed by 
his neighbors, 106. 

Trail, the Mormon, 382. 

Translation of the golden plates, 37, 42-46; 
second copy made, 4+ ; at Whitmer's house, 
46 ; alleged error, 65 ; of the Scriptures, 
68-71. 

Tribune, Salt Lake, founders, 566. 
Trumbull, Lyman, visit to Utah, 536 ; use of 

his influence, 570 ; vote against Frelinghuy- 

sen Bill, 571. 
Trustee in trust for the church, Young's se- ! 

lection, 473. 

Tucker, Pomeroy, " Origin and Progress of j 
Mormonism," viii ; Smith's occupations, 
n; picture of Smith, 12; Rigdon's early j 
visits to Smith, 43, 67; publication of Mor- 
mon Bible, 47. 

Tullidge, E. \Y., " History of Salt Lake City," 
viii; land rights, 164 note, 398 note; on 
hand-cart tragedy, 426 ; on land titles, 472 ; 
attitude of the church toward the federal 
government, 544 ; in the " New Movement," 
561 ; Young's purpose, 568 ; outside influ- 
ences, 570; view of the church character, 
617. 

Turner, Prof. J. B., on Mormon teachings, 
127. 

Twelve Apostles, authorized, 120 ; at head of 
the church, 315 ; reestablish the First Presi- 
dency, 330. 

U 

"Underground" escapes from the Edmunds 
law, 599. 

Underwood of Kentucky, presents anti-Mor- 
mon memorial, 430. 

United States Supreme Court decision, on 
jury law and prosecutor, 569; advance 
hints of, 570; regarding anti-polygamy 
laws, 593 ; regarding church property, 602. 

University of Nauvoo, 242; of the State of 
Deseret, 440. 

Ur:m and Thummim, deliver.' to Smith, 32; 
nature of, 33 ; Smith deprived of, 43 ; how 
made, 94. 

Utah, pioneers' trip to, 379, 391 ; first migra- 
tion and crops, 391 ; the following compa- 
nies, 392-394; first white explorers, 395, 
396; early crop failures, 398, 40c; early 
rural settlements, 403 ; first Mormon gov- 
ernment, 428 ; first state convention and 
constitution, 429; admitted as a territorv, j 
432; Mormons forbidden to leave, 44?, | 



447, 505 note ; first territorial election, 458 ; 
Mormon election law, 467; rival courts 
and officers, 470 ; law about testimony and 
citations, 470 ; legislature sustains Young, 
499; race population, 582; Utah commis- 
sion, 597 : vetoed law of 1901, 605 ; ad- 
mitted as a state, 606-608 ; parties in, 606 ; 
the state constitution, 607 ; census, 610. 

V 

Van Buren, Pres. Martin, Smith's hostility to, 
242. 

Van Dusen, I. McGee, description of endow- 
ment ceremony, 353. 

Van Vliet, Capt. Stewart, mission to Salt 
Lake City, 485. 

Van Zile, district attorney, trial of R. T. Ben- 
ton, 541 ; trial of Miles, 594. 

Vaughn, V. H., secretary and acting governor 
of Utah Territory', 567, 568. 

" Voice of Warning," 127. 

Voree Herald, 325. 

W 

Wade, Ben, on the Mormons, 557; anti- 
polygamy bill, 591. 

Waite, C. B., chief justice of Utah, 540; his 
offence to the Mormons and what followed, 
547, 548 ; resigns, 550. 

Waite, Mrs. C. B., on Steptoe's case, 468 ; on 
Gov. Dawson's punishment, 538 ; biogra- 
phv, 450 note ; examples of polygamy, 586, 
587. 

Walker Brothers' experiences, 558, 560. 

W T alker-Hoge incident, 245-249. 

Waiiingford Community, treatment of, 135. 

" War, the last Mormon," in Illinois, 347-351. 

" War," the Mormon, in Utah, 476-515 ; the 
federal force, 481 ; instructions to the fed- 
eral commander, 482; Young's proclama- 
tion, 486; Young's letter to the federal 
commander, 487; Mormon plan of cam- 
paign, 489; burning of wagon trains, 489, 
490; preparation for spring campaign, 
wasteful contracts, 500 ; causes of the back- 
down, 504; exodus of Mormons, 509; the 
terms of peace, 514; Johnston's march to 
Salt Lake City, 515 ; departure of troops 
from the territory, 537. 

Ward, the emigration scandal, 410. 

Warren, Major W. B., on Hancock County 
commission, 337 ; in command in Hancock 
County, 343; advice to Mormons, 345; 
weekly reports from Nauvoo, 345. 

Warsaw, 111., anti-Mormon feeling, 297; regi- 
ment's share in the Smiths' murder, 304; 
flight of inhabitants, 313; Signal's appeal 
to non-Mormons, 338 ; protest against the 



636 



INDEX 



"burnings," 343; appeal for new settlers, 
352 ; Mormon real estate sales, 361. 
Wasp, Nauvoo, 253. 

Weed, Thurlow, on Mormon Bible, 47. 

Weller, John B., on Robinson murder, 555. 

Wells, " Gen." D. H., disloyal utterances, 
461 ; order to the Legion, 484 ; to the fed- 
eral commander, 488 ; his plan of cam- 
paign, 489; indicted for treason, 500; order 
from Gov. Cumming, 536 ; assails federal 
government, 543 ; request of Gov. Shaf- 
fer, 567 ; indicted for unlawful cohabi- 
tation and murder, 568, 569; refusal to 
testify, 594. 

Wells, Gov. H. M., veto of the act of 1901, 
605. 

Wentworth, John, Smith's letter to, 90, 118; 

presents anti-Mormon petition, 431. 
Wesley, John, belief in the miraculous, 129. 
West, C. W., governor of Utah Territory, 573. 
Westward movement of church, first step, 102. 
White, A., land at Commerce, 111., 223. 
Whitmer, Christian, testimony regarding the 

plates, 79. 

Whitmer, David, description of the transla- 
tion of the plates, 42 ; miraculous mani- 
festation to, 46 ; on Rigdon, 75, 101 ; 
expulsion from Far West, 81; later years, 
83; on Smith's ignorance, 89; Smith's 
method of revealing, 111 ; the publication 
of the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants," 
112, 113; failure of a revelation, 113; 

' charges against, 154; expulsion, 188; plan 
to make him president of the church, 328. 

Whitmer, Jacob, testimony regarding the 
plates, 79. 

Whitmer, John, testimony regarding the 
plates, 79; failure as historian, 114; de- 
posed, 188; testimony against Mormon 
leaders, 213. 

Whitmer, Peter and family, 46, 83, 85 ; first 
elder, 100. 

Whitmer, Peter, Jr., ordered West, 72; testi- 
mony regarding the plates, 79; arrival in 
Missouri, 162, 163. 

Whiney, N. K., associate justice, State of 
Deseret, 429. 

Whitney, O. F., " History of Utah," viii; on 
Gov. Dawson's punishment, 539. 

Whitsitt, Prof., against Pres. Fairchild, 
68 ; analysis of the Mormon Bible, 92 
note. 

Whittlers at Nauvoo, 261. 

Whitton, Bridge, connection with the Kinder- 
hook plates, 87. 

Wight, Lyman, arrest at Far West, 199 ; sur- 
rendered at Far West, 208 ; commitment, 
214 ; his church in Texas, 326. 

Wilcox, Phineas, disappearance in Nauvoo, 
334- 



Wiley, Robert, on the Kinderhook plates, 86, 
87. 

Williams, F. G., trial of, 154. 
Willie, captain of hand-cart emigrants, 423. 
Wilson, C. C, chief justice Utah Territory, 
567- 

Wilson, Gen. R., operations in Daviess 

County, Mo., 210-211. 
Winter, Rev. John, recollections of Rigdon, 

66. 

Winter Quarters, 363 ; settlement of, 377 ; re- 
moval to east side of the Missouri, 393. 

Wisconsin, recommended to the Mormons, 
186; Strang's church in, 324-326. 

Witnesses of the golden plates, 78-86. 

" Wolf Hunters," Young's, 452. 

Woodruff, Wilford, first visit to Smith, 153; 
mission to England, 229 ; on the work 
there, 230 ; report of the conference with 
the Peace Commission, 513; elected presi- 
dent of the church, 601 ; manifesto about 
polygamy, 602-604; visits from the spirits 
of Smith and Young, 604. 

Woods, G. L., governor of Utah Territory, 
568; assertion of authority, 573. 

Woods, J. W., counsel for Smith, 299. 

Woodward, Judge D., on Father Smith, 10. 

Wooton, F. H., secretary of Utah Territory, 
537- 

Worrell, Lieut, murder of, 336. 

Y 

Young, Ann Eliza, divorce suit, 572, 573. 

Young, Brigham, suppression of Mother 
Smith's " History," vii ; on Smith and the 
Mormon Bible, 98 ; refusal to reveal, 114; 
doctrine of Adam, 116; rebuke of O. 
Pratt, 117; on persecutions, 136; Smith as 
a storekeeper, 143 ; Kirtland Bank, 149 ; 
admission about Danites, 192; on tithing, 
193, 194; flight to Quincy, 111., 216 ; night 
visit to Far West, 218 ; president of the 
Twelve, 218; Smith's miraculous healing, 
227 ; mission to England, 229 ; Smith's 
military rank, 237 note ; married to Smith's 
widows, 275 note; original copy of the 
revelation about polygamy, 280; his first 
feeling about polygamy, 280 note ; spiritual 
wife doctrine, 287 ; adopts Lee, 289 ; on 
Smith's burial place, 307; faith in Smith, 
309; course after Smith's death, triumph 
over Rigdon, 314-318 ; promise about the 
prophet's son, 322; on Mother Smith, 323; 
biography, 327 ; joins Mormon church, 327 ; 
first two wives, 326, 327 ; preaching and 
working at his trade, 328 ; fidelity to Smith, 
328, 329 ; revelation about, 329 ; on revela- 
tions, 329, 435 ; home missionaries sent out, 
329; president of the church, 330; dishon- 



INDEX 



637 



esty of elders, 331 ; reply to Quincy com- 
mittee, 339; reply to Hancock County 
commission, 340; address to Pres. Polk, 
357; on migration to the far West, 359; 
rebuke to counterfeiters, 360; departure 
from Nauvoo, 362; address to the camp, 
362 ; arrival on the Missouri, 367 ; misrep- 
resentation to the English, 377 ; carpenter 
work, 377 ; his only revelation, 379 ; lieuten- 
ant general of Utah pioneers, 381 ; visit to 
Fort Laramie, 383 ; hears about Utah, 386 ; 
illness on the way, 389; return trip, 392; 
leads party across the plains, 394; first 
Sunday service in the valley, 396 ; land as- 
signments, 396; on further explorations, 
397 ; selects site of Salt Lake City Temple, 
397 ; appeal to workmen, 403 ; denuncia- 
tion of gold seekers, 407 ; order to Saints 
in Europe, 413; responsibility for hand- 
cart tragedy, 418, 425-427 ; plan for political 
independence, 428; governor of State of 
Deseret, 429 ; J. D. Grant's picture of, 433 ; 
his leadership in Utah, 433; spokesman of 
God, 434; dictatorship illustrated, 434-438; 
extracts from discourses, 435, 436, 437, 
441, 443, 468, 475, 484, 497; denunciation 
of Gladdenites, 436 ; appropriation of a 
canon, 437 ; on property rights, 437; to his 
creditors, 437 ; on bishops' courts and 
bishops, 439, 442; trustee of the church, 
440; charges of profanity, stealing, etc., 
441,443; threats of punishment, 443, 444; 
surprising confessions, 446; warning to 
would-be fugitives, 446, 497 ; responsibility 
for Parrish and Aikin murders, 448-451 ; 
his "Wolf Hunters," 452; on human sacri- 
fice, 455, 456 ; first governor of Utah Terri- 
tory, 458 ; Kane's part in his selection, 
459; attack on Pres. Z. Taylor, 461, 463; 
denunciation of Judge Brocchus, 462-466 ; 
delayed election proclamation, 464 ; deter- 
mination to be governor, 468, 475 ; treat- 
ment of Steptoe, 469 ; reply to Judge Stiles, 
471; Mormon land conveyed to, 473; an- 
nounces the approach of the federal 
troops, 483 ; to keep out the troops, 484 ; 
threat to " take to the mountains," 485 ; 
proclamation to the people of Utah, 486; 
letter to the federal commander, 487; let- 
ters to Col. Alexander, 494, 495 ; defiance 



of federal government, 497, 549; indicted 
for treason, 500; interview with Kane, 502; 
offer of provisions refused, 503; reasons 
for a back-down, 504 ; introduction of Gov. 
Cumming in the Tabernacle, 508; confer- 
ence with the Peace Commission, 512, 513 ; 
ultimatum about the troops, 514; snub to 
Gov. Cumming, 516; responsibility for 
Mountain Meadows Massacre, 527-532; 
proposed arrest for counterfeiting, 536, 537 ; 
authorized from Washington to raise troops, 
539 ; nominated for governor of the State 
of Deseret, 540; scoff at Pres. Lincoln, 
542 ; predicts ruin of the government, 544 ; 
denunciation of federal officers, 548 ; how 
arrest prevented, 549; interview with Col- 
fax, 552 ; interview with Lyman Trumbull, 
556 ; opposition to Gentile merchants, 557, 
558, 560; treatment of Walker Brothers, 
558 ; connection with Z. C. M. I., 559, 560; 
attacked in Utah Magazine, 563; trouble 
with laborers, 563; interview with the 
prophet's sons, 563 ; indicted for unlawful 
cohabitation and murder, 568, 569; Ann 
Eliza's divorce suit, 572, 573 ; death of, 
574; estimate of his character, 574-581; 
his wealth, 576-579; fee for divorces, 577; 
account with the church, 578, 579 ; his will, 
579 ; list of his wives, 579, 580 ; his houses, 
580; warning to dissatisfied wives, 584; 
family life, 588; view of the church's ex- 
tension, 617. 

Young, Emmeline A., suit against Brigham's 
executors, 579. 

Young, Joseph A., succor to hand-cart emi- 
grants, 423. 

Z 

Zarahemla, 91, 94. 

Zion, city and land of, 163; right of Saints 
to, 163-165, 169; warning against a rush 
to, 165 ; location and founding of city, 166, 
167 ; site of Temple consecrated, 167 ; not 
to be moved, 179 ; abandonment excused, 
224. 

Zion Cooperative Mercantile Institution, in- 
corporation and object, 559 ; business sta- 
tistics, 560 note; influence in politics, 571 
note. 



/ 



THE FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN 
FOREIGN POLICY 

WITH A WORKING BIBLIOGRAPHY 

By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART 

Professor of History, Harvard University ; author of " American 
History told by Contemporaries" etc. 

Cloth. i2mo. $1.50, net 

" A very good introduction to the whole subject. There are seven chapters, comprising as 
many diplomatic phases : The United States as a World Power, The Experience of the United 
States in Foreign Military Expeditions, Boundary Controversies, A Century of Cuban Diplo- 
macy, Colonies, What the Founders of the Union thought concerning Territorial Problems, 
and The Monroe Doctrine. To these is added a working bibliography of American diplomacy, 
sure to be helpful to those who wish to pursue the subject systematically." 

— St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 

" This book is of great value to students and statesmen, editors and politicians, being a 
complete resume of the diplomacy of this government from the time it threw off the yoke and 
took its place as an independent nation. Professor Hart is a very clear, concise, and interest- 
ing writer, and he not only recapitulates the facts of history, but arranges and compares them 
in such a way that his readers can easily follow the trend of American ideas." 

— Nebraska State Journal. 

" Lucidly written, and the conclusions reached are indisputable. . . . The book may be 
commended to 'anti-imperialists' for their instruction. Yet it is not controversial in tone or 
partisan in its arguments ; it contains simply the results of profound historical knowledge. A 
bibliography adds greatly to its value." — Providence Journal. 



AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 

By JOHN B. HENDERSON, Jr. 

Cloth. Octavo. $3.50, net 

"Of vast practical service to every American who gives to the great international questions 
of his country the attention they deserve, nor, indeed, does its usefulness stop there. It will 
be found as serviceable in Europe, though there, naturally enough, its use will be restricted to 
diplomatic circles, members of parliaments, editorial writers, and a limited number of students 
of international affairs, whereas with us it is a book for all the people, for all voters, who may 
be called upon to take into consideration most of the large issues here involved, which are 
of the present and the future, as well as of the past. The book deals with the fur seals and 
the Behring Sea award ; the inter-oceanic canal problem ; the Samoan question, now settled to 
our entire satisfaction, and, therefore, at present, at least, strictly historic; the Monroe Doc- 
trine, with special reference to the Venezuelan boundary dispute; and the northeast coast 
fisheries — a problem that is gradually adjusting itself without diplomatic interference." 

— The Mail and Express (New York). 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary 
Government, J670-J7J9 /r n 



The History of South Carolina under the Royal 
Government, 1 7 19- 1 776 

The History of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775- J 780 



By Edward McCrady, a Member of the Bar of Charleston, S.C., and President of the 
Historical Society of South Carolina. 

" Unquestionably a valuable contribution to American historical literature. It covers a field that no 
one else has hitherto attempted to adequately treat of. It evidences a vast amount of research into musty 
archives and an instinct that guided the author to a discriminating selection of material. . . . The future 
must surely be indebted to Mr. McCrady in no mean degree." — St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF VIRGINIA IN THE 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 



By Philip Alexander Bruce, author of "The Plantation Negro as a Freeman," and 
Corresponding Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society. In two volumes. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth, gilt tops. Vol. I, pp. xix + 634. Vol. II, pp. vi + 647. 
$6.00, net. 

_ " One of the most valuable contributions to the intimate historical knowledge of America. This work 
will be useful for all time, and not merely to the lay reader who wishes to know accurately concerning the 
early conditions of life in Virginia, but to the political economist and the social scientist, who are laboring 
to advance the substantial interests of the world." — Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. 



By James W. Garner, Ph.M., Member of the Mississippi Historical Society. Cloth. 
8vo. $3.00, net 

" The latest and one of the most valuable examples of pacific literature which is eradicating the bitter- 
ness from our national history. It has taken over 400 pages to enable Mr. Garner to tell the story of that 
time of distrust and calamity, and even with so generous an allowance of space he has not been able to 
permit himself much comment, but has packed every page with facts, taking the pains in each instance to 
give his authorities for statements made. . . . The story that follows is one of arrogance upon both 
sides, of frailty and passion, indignation, courage, conscience, fanaticism, nobility, and contemptibility. 
Mr. Garner has made the dry records of the legislature and newspapers tell their dramatic story, and 
it will be impossible for any American to read it without sympathy. ... It is a valuable chapter of 
American history, and should have no lack of readers." — Chicago Tribune. 



MARYLAND AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE 



By Newton D. Mereness, Sometime University Fellow in History in Columbia Uni- 
versity. Cloth. 8vo. $3.00, net. 

" We cannot speak too highly of the way in which this work has been done. Dr. Mereness has studied 
every point in the light of the original contemporary documents, printed and in manuscript, not only those 
in the archives of the State, but those in private collections; and references to the authorities confirm 
every statement. The labor undergone has been great; but the result is a work planned and carried out 
in the truest historical spirit, and invaluable to the student of American history and institutional develop- 
ment." — The Nation. 




8vo. Cloth. Gilt top. Each $3.50, net 



An Inquiry into the Material Condition of the People, based upon 
Original and Contemporaneous Records 



RECONSTRUCTION IN MISSISSIPPI 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



